TECH Sew at home upholsrety hot rod

There is a wood under lip that I put into the body as extra strangth and a tack strip,its glued in with LiqudeNails. To turly lock down the top of cockpit lip padding,I designed and made from alum strip 1/8in.x 1 in. some screw down plates that fit nice to match body upper lip,they need to be small plates in the corners and longer ones were the body lip is fairly strait,with screw every 3in. or so.
Plate in this corner is only about 6in. or less long , cut and bent to body top lip.

 

All this upper lip is done with out any sewing,so any one can make it this way!
At first I was thinking we could get around the corner with only two seams,NO WAY, so ended up with 6 parts in each corner .
It was at this point I found out there is some vinyl that is four way flex<that I could not get, vs only the two way I'm using here. So did with two way that is same as all the rest of seats.
After fitting and drilling the plates to fit,we started at the back of upper cockpit,by using 1/2in. sewfoam and the vinyl,with vinyl upside down on the body and sewfoam on top of it,I added the plate and screws [ note I made some temp holders out of welding rod that was made to a point on the grinder= finds screw hole EZer and holds pad in place for fitting] some working with it is needed,so when pulled over in to cockpit it dose less wringles. When ya get it pretty good,cut off extra to keep too much build up from happening under the padding.

 

The parts are each over laped running over top of each other to rear of car,this was done so rain/wind would be less likely get in under it laps.
Note that we folded under about 1/2in. of shows edage of lip end, held with contact glue so it will not creep out and look bad. This over lap must be adjusted many times by pulling it over and down to see if it comes to the right fit [ unscrew some and rescrew plate for adjusting.
We added more foam under the main foam were needed to get the puff just right.

 

Work along from back to front of car,I temp pinned or stapled for fit,and when it looked good we stapled it about every 2in. up under the wood mounted under the lip for this ,wood was designed to run just above the inside door panles Wood placemint though is part of your design done before all other work on inside started.

 

With the door panle in place,ya can see how it covers the staples nicely,note the top of door panle has a 1/2in. piping made from old rope covered with vinyl and stapled to back of door panle so piping hangs over top and nicely fills any gap that may show up between upper lip and door panle.

 

The seat back nicely cover the back and there is also storage space behind seat back you can get to just by tilting back forward some This will work on nearly any type of cockpit lip top of most years roadsters "T" or "A". In post #60 of this tech is a completed photo of all of it!
Hope you enjoyed this tech,I'll try to A any Q's

 

Thanks I hope mine turns out nearly as nice. Great TECH

 

The biggest problem with home machines is the stitch length and thread size. Most are to closely spaced and will perforate the vinyl and weaken the strength of the material and separate easily. In most cases you will be sewing through 4 layers of vinyl and that may put your machine out of adjustment if it will even sew it at all. 40 years of experience.

 

MJ40's,if you had taken the time to read this tech thanks,but you may have missed some things,I covered about that and there is no prob as you are thinking that was not noted already.
Some tricks lay in type of thred and niddel that I covered as well.
This tech is not for pro's,it is for do it your self at home hot rodders.
If you'd like to do a tech on how 40 years of your experience would do it all ,go for it on another thread,thanks

 

A look from the other side.
One thing we added to the rugs,was two 4in. x 5in. pockets for sunglass ect. up near the dash on each side,made from black fish net pantyhose,using the top band as pocket top

 

I did a quick search before I posted. Pro or not we all need to know the little things and bad information that some seem to give. Not picking you out here just pointing out the obvious from others. The average beginner is looking for help from the experienced. I didn't say I was a pro, still learning after 40 years. Sorry if you think I hijacked your thread.

 

The end photos of my work shows there is no bad information given by me at all.
What I did is use what I had to do what was needed. My son and I saved a lot of cash we really didn't have to blow on upholstery and greatly enjoy the fact it may also save some other hot rodder,so he too can end up with better rod then he other wise could of had.
Thanks

 

Nice post, Dana. Lots of tips for the home builder.

 

I have a real old (think its 1930's) Singer waiting for me over at my moms house, am going to take a shot at doing my own interior work. This thread is a good resource. Subscribed.

 

nice work

 

dana barlow-Thanks, not sure I'm ready to tackle my own interior yet, but this thread helps in making a decision. By the way, your sons interior turned out great.

 

Thanks for the good words.
We have put around 200+ miles on the rod in the last month.
We started seeing some ware showing on the rug from drivers heels ,so took them out and added some scuff pads made by cutting two nice size parts from a cheep floor matt and sewing them on to rug at the right places. Photo is with other rugs and doorpandels out as a test ,we made the rugs velcro down in 3 main parts so they are EZ to remove and clean.

 

Lance did find someone to test the upholstery out,I think this is why I like having nice seats in a hot rod when ya can get EYE CANDY
Seem's to be the right finish to this tech!

 

^^ yea, that turned out real nice! Interior doesnt look bad either...

 

Very nice Dana!

 

Nice job with the posts. I'm thinking about doing my own and you work is inspiring.

 

My son asked about making a car cover custom fit to his T-bucket,looking around turns out ya buy a cover for a small car for less then ya can buy the waterproof fabic to make one. So that's what we did,and plan on cutting it down and resewing it to fit the "T" justright.
I'l post some photos how it comes out,if this also something of intrest
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=799597

 

I found a old photo of seat wood work that was done befor adding the upholstery,it maybe handy,if your planning on making your own seat seats like I do. A radio is now hinding under the seat,no one sets in the dead center,I did cut a little of the foam away on bottom so it makes no bump at all in seat base.
That was my son's "T"he's been driving and having fun with for a few years now.

I've started working on my own old hotrod,and got to the point I'm going to do the insides about the same way;this is build of it;http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=793393

 

A update on my own 1928A upholstery I'm working on right now,,here's the panels and rug done this week. Next is the seat and then a small pad running around just above seat back to cockpit rail too finish off.

 

The yellow and black look good together very nice.

 

Thanks Rich,
Yellow is to match up with my old yellow V8 Y-block 292 Ford too, 28A Body n frame are gloss black.
Back between 1959 n 1965 I had all black seats,cuz the black vinyl was free B,but really it was too hot to set on here in Miami Fl.much of the time,had to keep a beach towel ready. So this time I'm putting yellow were we set down,your butt an back
.

 

This is the plan for upholstery in my 28A,with the drawing I made,I worked out the panels to match the seat yellow roll n pleat. So far so good
I did run into a prob. when I got the yellow prepleated,it turned out that it was not made as well as the white stuff I had got for my son's 23 "T". The backing plastic sheet of the yellow roll n pleats is super thin crap,it tears very EZ and bunchs up when trying to sew it= I needed to fine a fix= trick is to put some 2in. wide masking tape on to back,you sew right through it and it don't show anyway,plus holds that crappy backing together so sewing from the top show side works fine.
Seat bottom an back are next,then a fill strip along the back of cockpit from wood trim down to back of seat as a finish.

 

So the 2in. masking tape work around for that prepleated yellow very thin backing was good enough I did the seats too.

The rebuild for my old rod is here;
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=793393

 

A good little informative thread I somehow missed all this time . Good job !