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How to Upholster a Car Seat From Scratch

April 13, 2012 By Nadeem Muaddi 8 Comments

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch - header

Check out this awesome guide on how to upholster a car seat from scratch, submitted by Brent Parker of Brent Parker Motor Trimming in Glenorie, Australia. This how-to guide was originally published in our Auto Upholstery Forum.

Brent writes…

Thought I’d share with everyone how I build seats from scratch with a step-by-step pictorial. I’m currently trimming a Lotus Elan 1959.

The first photo is what the seats originally looked like. You can see how they’re very lumpy and out of shape, so I decided to completely strip and rebuild them (the right thing to do).

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

Here I welded tabs on so I could put an outside back on with Christmas tree plugs, and I screwed timber so I could fasten the cover down with ease:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

Installing new elastic webs. I doubled up for strength:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

Here I cut out the approximate shape with the foam cutter, then put a rough sanding disc on the end of a drill and started shaping it to what I needed:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

I laid some 9mm foam over the top, flattened out some of the slight bumpiness and marked evenly where my seams will go:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

With the two seats finished being foamed up, the next step was to start marking out. I did this with old vinyl, making sure I had all my attachment marks. I did this with all the panels:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

I transferred the vinyl I marked out to the leather. I then cut those pieces and sewed them together with my twin needle machine.

Sewing my pleats with 3/4″ foam sliced down half inch, makes for a nice pillow:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

It’s all sewn up and ready to go. I also sewed underneath the seam with calico so it holds the piping down and doesn’t twist:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

You can see here how I’m cutting off the excess seam with my rotary cutter. This is absolutely essential so you can get a nice smooth line when the cover is pulled down.

You then glue the calico down, pulling it quite tight because this is virtually how far the piping is going to come down:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

Some photos of the finished product:

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

The Hog Ring - How to make a seat from scratch

To see more of Brent’s work and keep up on his latest projects, follow Brent Parker Motor Trimming on Facebook. Also, check out The Hog Ring‘s “How To” section.

Filed Under: Archive, How-to, Pro Tips, THR Favorites Tagged With: Auto Trim, Auto Upholstery, Brent Parker Motor Trimming, Car Interior, Lotus Elan 1959

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jimmy says

    June 20, 2019 at 4:52 pm

    Great tutorial. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Tom says

    September 11, 2019 at 9:01 pm

    Thanks for the great tutorial. I’m fairly new at doing upholstery and this was clear to me. I won’t count on my first try looking that good.

    Reply
  3. Richard says

    November 1, 2019 at 1:10 pm

    The cushion border seam should have lined up with the cushion face seam, otherwise a very nice job

    Reply
  4. Rusty says

    June 30, 2020 at 8:49 am

    Outstanding Brent

    Reply
  5. Thomas Wiesner says

    August 14, 2020 at 7:57 am

    Excellent Brett

    Reply
  6. guy says

    May 26, 2022 at 2:40 am

    20s car sponsee

    Reply
  7. Bob says

    July 20, 2022 at 9:55 pm

    Super sweet!

    Reply
  8. Sunil says

    September 27, 2022 at 5:45 am

    Nice work good fitting

    Reply

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