Great tech, one of the areas,of doing a car that is almost always sent out to have done,due to lack of info,and know how.And your English is better than,most people I know!Thanks,enjoyed it.
cool post, i'll add that the alternative to "stuffing" the pleats, is just to add the padding to the stack when yousew the pleats, its more work to sew through, and your machine may not be up to it. so when do we get to see more of whatever you are building with that allison motor? that video scared me!
Thanks for all the nice feedback, i guess my English teacher would be proud of me ;-), I must disagree with you Ray sewing the pleats thru the foam will create an ugly cheap look. And the pleats will not be so deep either. But thats my opinion. Im working slowly on the V12, and the plan is to testdrive it on the gravel road this year, ive mounted the gearbox and will mount the rear axle soon, then its just the matter of fixing some steering and brakes. And a friend of mine is building a new radiator for me.
I was wondering how much material you should purchase to cover two seats...what did you use?....there is a fabric store here that is going out of business and they have "marine vinyl(for boats?) at 80% off, would this be a good choice or should I go to a auto upholstry shop? Thanks.
I Bought 20 meters black and it was 140cm wide, but that was for the whole car two seats + the kick panel,door sides and back sides. 10 meter's should be well enough for a seat i guess. I bought vinyl black and red ,foam,padding,thread,cotton cloth. And it costed me 240$ if i remember right If the seat is 150cm wide i guess you need 2m for the tuck&roll part I say go ut and me***ure on the seat and add 50% Better safe then sorry, and black fit most of the things ;-)
Oops forgot. id say stay away from the upholstery shops, twice the price. Go for the 80% off to start with, and if its a success you can redo it with the colony leather And Boat vinyl would be great for an real Hot Rod....
if you can't sew thru the foam, or it doesn't sew tight enough, its becasue the sewing machine isn't sewing a tight enough s***ch, i used an old pfaff regular old sewing machine, and you have to adjust the thread tension etc. to get it perfect, when right it should sew a nice tight s***ch, the foam will be ****ed down to almost nothing.
A couple of things to add: 1) Sewing through the foam will work and shouldn't add too much strain to your machine. If it's got enough power to sew through the backing and the vinyl, a little foam probably wont bother it. Using a pleat stuffer is the way they used to do it, and IMHO sewing through the foam may cause the seams to tear out sooner. Just my opinion however, and a lot of pleats have been done by sewing through everything. 2) Holy ****! That is an Allison in the back ground! Cool. What model number is it?
OK Its up to everyone to give the sew thru the foam method a try. But if you use the cotton cloth as backing. you will get most of the "bulge" on that side,since it's softer and will give more. That's the reason i me***ured the vinyl 10-20 mm wider per pleat than the cotton. so i could get more "bulge" on that side. I say the method i used gives the best result. But hey its a free world............... The Allison is actually a Rover Metor Mark 4B, And its a Centurion Tank engine adaption of the famous Rolls Royce Merlin V12 airplane engine. Its an 650hpr 27 litre four valve dual plugs, dual magneto´, dual fuelpump, two Zenith br*** carb version. The airplane version delivered between 1000-2000 hpr. I bought it for the SOUND......... More info at www.brandow.tk follow the V12 Racecar/Hot Rod links. Or cut to the cheese directly and check out the movie http://w1.132.telia.com/~u13203489/ItsAlive3.MPG Right click and save it on your harddrive, since its 3.9 MB (Hope im not of topic, and will get barred by Ryan )
Thanks for that Lars! Now I've got the movie again! I see you're making real progress on that thingie. Nice work on the transmission hook up.
There is a 'special' foam you can buy for doing R & P, it has channels already cut into it. The foam is pretty thick, say 1", and the cuts go all the way down to the backing material. Only thing is, it is a standard size width, you don't have a choice..it's like 1 1/2" or 2". Makes for a nice deep pleat. It does make it easier, as you don't have to lay out the pleat patternm, either.
Great Post - I only have one question - How did you talk your wife into letting you use the sewing machine? My wife is Swedish but she isn't happy about sharing her tools with me.
scrim-backed foam. its foam padding, in various thicknesses, with a light burlap type material on the backside. light, easy to sew, and thats what its made for.
Landmule I bought her a new one And used the old one But you could show here the pic's and ask her to do it
Sewing this stuff is easy when your wife is a seamstress and has as walking-foot machine! Makes it easy for me And if I'd have looked at the picture closer I'd have known it was based on a Merlin instead of an Allison. Green paint threw me off I guess.
Lars, that was simply awesome. What a great Tech post! I've often wondered what the steps were and you nailed it. You made it very easy to understand. Thank you. Keith
Good post! I tried to do a t&r post about a year ago. Yours makes a lot more sense than mine did!
.........................Eleven and a half years later I'm guessing they may have figured it out by now.
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