General discussions about our craft and industry.
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By Ddedman
#13763
I'm currently working on recovering a set of Barracuda seats for a customer and they are kicking my butt. I realize I'm not oozing with experience but jeez. There's got to be and easier way. These are consisting of new third party seat foams and Original equipment styled seat re covers. (Repops). They are not fitting well. Not happy with the third party right now. Sorry I had to vent. Thanks for listening.
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By John
#13764
Yeah most of those reproduction seat covers are not well made and take a lot of finagling to get looking even sort of decent.
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By Ddedman
#13767
Yeah some assembly IS required with these. They're well stitch and good quality. They just fit like doodoo. Back at it tomorrow 🤪
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By Matt Hamblin
#13797
I am at the point that i am starting to turn down premade work. It always costs way too much time and effort for what i can justify charging the customer and they never are perfect. I am doing a set for a 73 camaro for a local resto shop. The foam is so thick that i literally had to stand on the frames to get the foam compressed enough to hog the cover on. Just way more effort than it should be. Found multiple places with new foam and covers and they all were the same part number. Never fun to do. Gotta use a lot of steam and have a lot of patience to get them looking ok.
Good luck!
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By Matt Hamblin
#13799
Yes. Foam or covers in general. Not to say some don't work out ok, but i always have had way more time in them than they were worth. In some cases it would have been about the same time to just make a new cover. But that is just my experience.
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By John
#13803
@Matt Hamblin thats nuts! I bet you were pretty frustrated.

My limited experience with pre-made covers is that same. They take 3 time as long to install as a cover you made yourself. A lot of trimmers wont do those jobs. Ill do them still but not for a set price. By the hour and no promises on how nice they will look.
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By Matt Hamblin
#13810
@John
Perfect example is the ones i am currently doing for a resto shop. 73 Camaro. New front and rear covers and foams all from classic industries.

The rear seat foams are all 6" thick. The boxing on the covers are around 4" tall. Plus about a relaxed 4-5" space in the frames between front and rear of the frame. I literally had to stand with all my weight on the bottom of the frames to get those 2 little covers on the cushions after a bunch of persuasion and compression. The backrest took my wife standing on it and me kneeling on it while hog ringing. Pretty much sucked. They came out nice except a couple spots on the backrest where the seams started ripping from the tension. Cheap vinyl and thread.

If this wasn't a new potentially long term client i would have passed on them. No way some dude in his garage just wanting new seat covers would be able to do those.
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