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And many thanks to drooman. This has been a terrific project, and he's been great to work with. Always more to learn in this business, but we've got some great people here at Sonderwerks. Happy to discuss your project. Please give me a call at Sonderwerks 704-799-7680 ext 101 - Dave Van Epps
Last edited by DVE; 07-01-2021 at 11:54 AM.
Reason: Adding more information
First a few impressions about the Sonderwerks organization... Dave (DVE) is the owner and he built the organization in a unique way. He constructed a huge facility with enough space to have a service shop, upholstery shop, and body shop on site, plus there is secure outdoor paved parking for probaby 100 cars. He then procured a number of smaller existing "shops" from the southeast US, he looked for talented guys running their own shops in their specific disciplines, bought their inventories, relocated them, and hired them. This is a generalization and I'm sure each arrangement was/is unique. I met everyone, and they all seem passionate about their work. As a bonus Dave the owner actually LIKES 928s! My relationship centered around Ernest the upholstery guy.
Ernest is an artist and therefore thinks like an artist and operates like an artist. Speed, schedules, and budgets are forces that work against Ernest's ultimate purpose to do his art. This does not mean that these forces are absent from Ernest's work but you can rest assured that he does not readily compromise quality for the sake of these forces.
Ernest has recovered countless 911 seats and has a book of very well known current and former clients, I'll let Dave decide if he wants to drop those names. Ernest has done 928 seats in the past and found them to be much more challenging than the 911 seats. (more sewing, more parts, more details....more time) When I decided to give these guys a try I told them that the community needed more options for doing "good" 928 seat restorations, and if they pulled these off successfully they would be seeing more 928 work. I shared with them many photos i've collected over the years of the poorly done 928 seats and directed his attention to the common trouble areas, I shipped the seat frames and stacks of extra foam out back in march:
Then I visited a few times in May:
The best part of my experience was working with the team... through many phone calls and hours of visits on multiple occasions it was a completely open conversation of methodologies and education (both ways) Never once was there a whiff of ego from anyone at Sonderwerks...I felt like I had worked with these guys for years. I attribute this to Dave's very specific efforts to keep a positive and productive energy going within the organization, an obvious carryover from his long business career.
As far as pricing goes I would consider it "competitive." My seats had "extra" work to do past the typical 928 seat, and Ernest spent a lot of extra hours developing some 928 specific methodologies to be used in the future.
These look pretty good. The most difficult part of the job is the bolsters where the curve inward (and immediately back out) right at the headrest.
From this angle, it appears they did a good job, right there. (It would be nice to see a side view.)
There's a too much material right at the front edge of the bottom bolster, on both sides.
Unfortunately, this will get worse, as the seat is sat in.
Getting the correct foam was a challenge, for us.
I finally found a passenger seat that had literally never been sat in. We tore it apart and had the foam duplicated.
Overall, a good job!
Time to get back to this, it's been a very busy summer.
Upholstery work of all types can be compared to a repaint; the preparation can make or break the job.
Foam type, condition, and shape are critical bits of the foundation for a nice job and in a 928 seat they present special issues. To my knowledge, correct replacement foam parts are NLA for these seats, and unlike 911 seats there seems to be no aftermarket offerings. When the seats were first made an artist made the "look" then metal and foam parts were designed, then upholstery. With a STANDARD REPEATABLE foam design one can create standard repeatable upholstery. The concept of pre-made upholstery seat kits yielding correct results relies upon (1) the seat kits being made from original patterns of vinyl or fabric (not leather..that shrinks) and (2) those kits being installed over perfectly (and correctly) shaped foam. This simply does not happen in most cases. Existing seat kits on the market have varying degrees of accuracy to the original shapes, and accept in rare cases as Greg mentioned, the original foam is flattened out or blown up somehow.
A huge help with all of this would be the ability to buy all new foam for the front seats... standard/repeatable foam could be used to make standard/ repeatable upholstery kits, and it would eliminate a lot of the issues of trying to fill the various gaps. Someone please make this!
Without new correct foam there are various ways to make this work, all are labor and skill intensive. With a standard premade upholstery kit one can sculpt new foam pieces, this is literally "sculpture" covered by thin upholstery....this is an advanced skill. It can be worked the other direction as well... use correct original foam, or foam shaped correctly, then make the upholstery fit the foam, panel by panel.
Sonderwerks used a combination of these methods on the Brumos seats .. more to follow.
07-01-2021, 11:41 AM
