Polaris Ranger Seats

[Mr. Stitchy]

Hi all,

I'm brand new to the forum, but I have occasionally read here over the past few years.  Glad to finally be an active member!  I have a small leather shop, in which we produce upper end leather goods like holsters, belts, dog collars & leashes, wallets and other leather fashion items.  One thing I have never really done is upholstery.  I have an employee who has done some upholstery work, but it is brand new for me.  I have been presented with a job to make new seats for a two passenger Polaris Ranger.  He wants it done in leather, so it's right up our alley.  However, not having done much upholstery like this, I know that we will be running into all sorts of issues I don't expect.  So, I am having trouble figuring out how to bid on this job and would be grateful if anyone can help me out on how to quote this.  Material cost is not the issue, it's just the labor I am trying to figure out.  I assume it will take at least twice as long as it should, but I don't want to charge extra just because we are going to be a little slow, that's not really fair.  But at the same time, I have to pay my employee and make sure I make some money on the job.

The seats are really pretty simple.  The bottom seat is basically just a bench seat with a little  hump of foam in the middle between the two passenger seats.  The OEM seats don't have any sort of curves sewn in them to accommodate the rise in the middle foam, nor did they cut the foam on a curve.  So, when the vinyl goes from the higher foam to the lower part of the bench, there is a void on either side of the hump where the vinyl doesn't touch the foam.  It's pretty cheap, in my opinion.  I'd like to make this a little better by filling that void if we can.  The back cushion is also one piece all the way across for both passengers.  It has a little more shape to it, but it's still very simple.  Finally, there are headrests for both passengers.  Everything is really simple looking, so I feel confident that we can do a good job on it.  I just don't know if I will make much money because it will probably take a lot longer than it should!  Oh, and the seats are in excellent condition.  So, we can use the existing foam and pull the upholstery off to make a pattern without any issue.  It's a pretty straight forward job. 

We will be using hair on hides for the back of each seat, and vegetable tanned leather which we are going to hand glaze and oil for the rest of the back, the bench and the headrests.  The vegetable tanned leather is a little stiff to be wrapping with, so we will likely have to wet it a bit to get it to wrap around the back.  It will not be as easy as using the vinyl that's on there now, that I know for sure.  Overall, it will be a very interesting job for us, and I am looking forward to it!

I'm hoping someone has has done one of these and can provide some first hand experience as to how long it took.  If not, I think the seats are really similar to a golf cart.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank for reading,
Mr. Stitchy   

[JuneC]

I've never done a thing with leather (I do boats), and I'm not certain what a Polaris Ranger is, but your project sounds interesting and I'd love to see pics as you progress.

June

[Mike]

[florida girl]

I have 2 Polaris ATV's, and they come stock with Allsport 4 way vinyl.  Easy care, durable.  ATV's generally go where trucks can't, and take a beating.

[Mr. Stitchy]

I ended up doing the Ranger shortly after I started the thread.  Sorry for my delay in posting the pics.

The client had brought me these skins that we used for the seats.  They are Wildebeest that he bowhunted in Africa.  Since the skins were one of a kind and very important to the client, we had to be very careful not to make any mistakes with them.  I measured 4 times and cut once.  The rest of the leather is vegetable tanned cowhide.  We waterproofed the veg-tan leather so it will hold up to the outdoor conditions the vehicle is used in. 

The hardest parts were the side bars that hold you in the vehicle.  Since they are welded in a loop, the wrap had to be hand stitched on.  Also, the curve made it very tricky to make the pattern.  It had to be done in two pieces.  I machine stitched the outside seam with two double stitches, and hand stitched the inside seam.  The parts also had to be wet molded to take the shape of the bar.  It was quite a process that took two of us the better part of an entire day just for those two bars.  These bars also have foam underneath the leather to make it nice and soft if you slam into it.  The passenger T-handle was also wrapped in foam and hand stitched on, though it wasn't nearly as difficult.

I added an extra touch the client didn't know about until he picked it up.  If you look at the headrests, you will see a hole in the wildebeest skin.  Each headrest has the kill shot where the arrow wen in the animal on that seat.  I took a risk on this, and he loved it! 

The client had added the surface on the hood.  They use the Ranger for hunting and the hunting dogs ride up there.  So, I added two built in leashes for each dog, one connects to each side of the dog's harness that they wear.  The leashes are adjustable so they can get it dialed in right for each dog. 

Overall, I think this project went perfectly.  It took a few days to complete, and wasn't without any issues or injuries, but the finished job turned out even better than I had envisioned.


I couldn't figure out how to load the images properly, so here is the link to the whole album of images for the project.
http://imageshack.us/g/1/10175130/

Theres a few more pictures in this album on our facebook too, https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.281280715338786.1073741827.161465187320340&type=3

[MinUph]

Very nice work Great job.