Projects Who else just decided to try their best and do the interior themselves?

Ok so I am wondering what other novice just decided to give it a go for an interior without ever doing it before? I have had this car forever and decided that what he hell I am going to give it a try and ask the upholstery group how to get out of any jam I get myself into. Post pics of your first try and tell us your story

 

Something I learned the hard way is that Vinyl or Nauga Hyde has a grain to it. It will stretch one way but not so well the other. Note the wrinkles in the Door and Kick panels.

Those are the result of not knowing or being Cheep and laying out your patterns to use the least amount of yardage. The lesson here is always buy more material than your yard stick tells ya you need. Pay attention to the grain. Fabric on the other hand has what's called the Welt and the Weft. Same thing in that it will give willingly one way but not the other.
The Wizzard

 

I did the carpet with piping and door panels on mine. Its not perfect but I think it came out ok, and not a lot of money. I tried to match the color of the dash and seats. The seats are as they were when I bought the car. I got the materials and carpet from www.automotiveinteriors.com.

 

Save all you can when you remove what is there,and use it for patterns.

 

My wife and I will finish our 1954 Chevy this winter. We bought the headliner and the carpet and then installed them ourselves last spring. We have bought a used upholstery machine and now we plan to do the seats and door panels from patterns. The headliner was a tough job for two old people who have both had back surgery, but we were able to do a decent job.

John

 

Use the best contact cement you can afford.

 

No pictures to substantiate my story but I did the interior in my Model A pickup back in the early 70's,I used plywood ,foam padding & tobacco colored vinyl,with no pattern and a cut down datsun pickup seat and brown carpet.

It looked ok for a beater pickup. HRP

 

I am working on mine.

 

Two things I am not, and do not want to be....an upholstery guy or a painter.
I'll leave it to the pro's.

 

look into pre-made kits - even then can be a real challenge, especially headliner for full size car - do plenty of searching here, and you tube, etc for ideas on how to do it - patience, perseverance, muscles required - practice on something else first, just as you should before doing first paint job

 

I have done some interior stuff and while I'm not the best, I can pull off some decent work. I got good at headliners by watching some online videos and reading posts on the internet of how others had done it, that helped a lot, got decent results out of my dad's 56 and 57 Chevy headliners. Cloth headliners are a lot easier to stretch and get wrinkles out of than perforated vinyl headliners.

On the door panels in my '52, the door cards were good, but they were just a big blank slab of blue fabric done by the previous owner. I got some '54 Ford door panel trim, added in some white vinyl, and just stapled the seams together underneath the trim line, so when the trim was installed, none of it showed. This was before.


And this is after, with the new inserts, also added some '63 T-bird door trims just to break it up a bit.


The seats that were in the car (the blue velour junk you can see in that first door panel pic) went in the dumpster and I recovered some original seat frames with a seat cover kit, wasn't too expensive, they turned out pretty good too.


If you get one of these cover kits, sew in a loop all the way around the bottom edges to insert a rod into, like a factory cover (or have someone sew one in) They don't come with that and it makes it a lot harder to pull tight and more suseptible to tearing.

Interiors are kinda fun, I enjoy that way more than mechanical stuff. Just don't put late model ugly ass seats in an old car. People cheap out all the time and just find any seats in good shape to stick in a car, but if they don't match the period, they won't look right. It's a sore spot for me.

 

6inarow sent me a PM asking how do you know what direction the Grain runs in material. So first let me back up just a bit. Yes my interior was done in my Home shop. I did not do the actual work myself. My 4 year younger Brother was the Upholstery and Paint guy between us. Together we built countless projects start to finish from our Teen's all through life to the end. The interior in my 51 was the last one he did and at that time his Mind was already leaving him, we just hadn't recognized it. Together we fought his health issue until he passed this last Jan. He was just 66 years young. So I've lost my life long best friend and partner. My sewing room hasn't been used in years. I didn't need to know what direction the grain went for all those past years or how to tell being he just knew. I'd give anything to be able to call him and ask. My best guess would be a hand held stretch test. The other option would be to ask at the supply house where you buy your product. We always bought at Perfect Fit in Portland. I know the counter guys were always very helpful there. So I don't have an answer for ya. I just know that this issue can be avoided as long as your aware of how product works.
Maybe another experienced upholstery guy will chime in and explain how to tell.
The Wizzard

 

Well that sucks. I mean about your brother. I have some brothers I feel the same way about. Thanks for pointing out this fabric issue though. You have a cool interior and thanks for posting the pics and the story

 

I will be doing mine. But will be practicing on junk yard seats 1st.

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A lot of nice work on here. I'll have to do my 40 chev gasser myself due to cost. I have a lot of black vinyl and I'm not looking for nothing fancy. On the pleats, straight and diamond, do you all buy it that way? I would like to do some of it in the diamond pleats. I found some vinyl that had the straight pleats but they wanted a fortune for it. The way the floor and the shape of the tunnel is going to be a real challenge on the carpet. A friend has a industrial type sewing machine I can borrow, so just keep giving advice on here, I'll need it.

 

You just have to pull on the vinyl. One way will stretch a bit and the other way wont move at all.

I made all my pleat and diamond pieces.

This is an excellent youtube channel for upolstery:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Cechaflo/videos

 

So K13 which way do you sew the pleats? to stretch side to side or along the length of the pleat?

 

Some good info here, thanks!

 

My pleats are all in regular material so it wasn't an issue. I try to figure out which way I will need the material to stretch the most when attaching it to something and try align it that way on my pieces before sewing for things I glue down. I would think you would want to run the pleats parallel to the side that doesn't stretch so they don't stretch and distort while you are sewing them but that's just a guess.

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6inarow I sewed my diamonds so the diagonal....that may or may not help you. ask someone else

 

seems to me that especially on your first attempt with soft material dividing to have the colors NOT be such an opposite contrast. then as skills improve... go for the contrast.

that chrome trim dividing is a great idea squablow.

 

Oh and I think vinyl usually stretches across the roll not along the length.

 

I bought a machine and the Sid Chavers DVDs and did my own last year...

 

I did!
and I regret NOTHING!
well, there are a few spots that if I were to do again, I may have done differently or better, but I think it looks great and I'm proud of what I learned.

 

I am going to give it a try myself. I have read stories about people sitting down at the kitchen table and making the interior for some old hot rod on their mothers sewing machine.
And then I read that the older sewing machines are just built with better quality, and would sew the heavier fabrics for interiors. The major limitation being the walking foot of the industrial sewing machine.
So when I get thicker materials, I will have to be able to adjust my speed, to match the feed, to keep a good stitch going. And to be able to recognize when and why things are going south, before you drive over the cliff.

And that is the point of my post, knowing how to use the tool to do the job properly.
I was recently given this machine, it had been stored away for years, was all gummed up and would not spin freely. Have to basically disassemble it and clean and oil.
I have to learn how to thread the needle, set the tension discs, you have stitch length.
Put the machine in time to pick up the thread properly from the bobbin.
Couple of weeks ago, I did not want to know any of this. I just want to sew up some car interior.
I now realize that if I do not know how the machine works, it will drive me crazy trying to use it.
Thats my contribution to this thread, draw lines on scrap fabric and practice feeding the material through and follow the lines, learn when to stop, when to hand wheel around a corner.
Like any tool, just because you own a welder, does not make you a welder.

 

Pfaff is a damn good machine. Pfaff is to sewing machines what Miller is to welders. You can sew sheets of plywood together with one of those.

 

No professional would want to put their name on what I wanted to do. It's good enough for my junk, but I'd never do it for someone else.

63wagon53 by 1pickup posted Jul 17, 2016 at 11:56 AM

 

I like it because it scares me.

 

I haven't yet, but I intend to learn to sew. I have recovered seats before, but that was years ago and Mom ran the sewing machine.


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@David Gersic that is exactly how my 56 got upholstered in 1976!!