Jerry Feather

While I was away from Doug's shop he took the opportunity to cut out the remaining medium/dark gray pieces for the basic cover of the seats. Here is a pictutre of the pile he has made of them.

This morning after breakfast and before I left for the office I cut out some thin (about .040 inch) ABS plastic and prepared it as a backing for the upper cushion inserts for the seat backs. I have wanted to put something on the back of the basic foam in order to give it some better structure and give something more to pull the leather cushion section leather around than just the bare foam. I kind of cut it into strips to help it mainitain some flexibility and shaped it so it will fit in the seat backs when it is covered.

The sections still fit fine and will cover nicely, I think. Here are some pictutres of the process, sort of, and the final result with the plastic backing trimmed. (Next post).

Next, rather than fill in the lowered gap areas in these back sections where the cushions are sort of recessed, as I did on the seat bottoms, I am going to grind the foam away in the high areas and simply fill in the remaining slots with foam. The reason is that I think that with the firmer cushion sections that we are going to build the cushion sections are likely to stick out more than I want. I have seen a lot of the seat backs done by the big guys where the upper section of cushions are kind of puffy and seem to just stick out too far, at least for my taste.

I think if I have the back cushion section slimmed down a bit the cushions are going to end up at a more flush position. We will see.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

Here is the picture of the back cushion sections trimmed.

Again, the piece of black material in the pile of leather Doug has cut out is a piece of vinyl that is the pattern for the upper headrest part of the seat backs. Doug cut out four of them for me that are pretty well oversize and I took them to the embrodiery shop to have our version of the Porsche crest stiched into them. If they call me when they are going to do it I'll try to get away and go take some pictures of that process. However, I'll be gone friday and I suspect that is when they will get to it.

What I decided to do is have the crests done in white outline with silver flag stripes and silver outlines with white flag stripes. Then, I'll decide which to put into these seats.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

This weekend I spend most of my available time working on the WW Liner project and got the outer form redone to account for the issues we discovered in the trial fitting on Tony's car at Spring Fling. More about that in the other thread.

Sunday, in spite of father's day, Doug and I put in about three hours on the Sport seats. While I spent my time rewiring the passenger seat to eliminate the heater provision, Doug worked on the method to sew up on of the seat bottom inserts with the gussets at the ends of each of the cushion sections. That was really time consuming and he only got one of them done.

I also got the cushion section pieces cut out for both of the seat backs except for the gussets for the top and bottom cushion sections. I'll try to get that finished up in our next session, which I hope will be one evening this week.

The first picture shows the side of the passenger seat where we will have to fill in the foam which is now open. I went on eBay and found the switch box for the two switches without the heater and blank third switch. I have also ordered a replacement bezel for just two switches, but it isn't here yet.

The other two pictures show the skin sewn up for the cushion insert for one of the seat bottoms. I'm hoping it will take on the look I want when it gets stuffed with foam, sewn to the inside bottom of the bolster piece and the rest of the bottom cover, and then hog-ringed into and onto the seat bottom.

I expect the top pieces for the seat backs will be embroidered in the next day or two, so then we can start sewing the covers up. When we get there we will be nearly finished with these seats.

Jerry Feather

Dean_Fuller

Those end caps might be the most time consuming part in the entire project. That is another area there may be an easier way. I went out Saturday and picked up my sewing machine from the upholstery shop I was working in. Wanted to start practicing again at night...your project has revived my interest again in recovering my trashed 89 seats. THANKS Jerry for this thread...and your thread on the pod. VERY HELPFUL and loaded with fresh ideas.

Jerry Feather

This may be more that almost any of you might want to know, but I have found it very facinating.

I have learned that digitizing a graphic image for embroidery is an art. In order to duplicate the image in stitches, each stitch must be carefully placed in order to accomplish the desired result. In the case of the Porsche-like crests that I wanted stitched into the seat back upper headrest area, there are over 10,000 stitches in the program.

One of the first things I learned about this process was to watch out for someone taking a short-cut. In this case when I originally worked up this project for the new interior in my first S4, and knowing that there are about two basic and fairly different versions of the Porsche logo/crest, I was careful to find a picture of what I think is the true and original version in one of my Porsche books. Even that was not an easy task.

I took the image to the embroidery shop and submitted it for digitizing. The fee then was, as I recall, $35. When the result came back, however, it was obvious to me that the "artist" had not digitized my image, but rather he had simply taken one that he had done before and sent it back to us for the fee. That might have been ok except he had chosen the version that I do not care for which is the one most commonly seen on eBay and such places. Although I think that later version is often used by the factory, particularly on printed materials, I don't find it to be true or original. In any case, I don't care for it!

I lodged my objection and in return we got my image digitized. Do some research on your own and you will discover what I am talking about, in case you are not already aware of the two basic versions of the logo; and there are probably several in between that you will be able to discover as well.

Another thing I learned is that it is important to let the "artist" know what kind of material the image is intended to be stitched into since, in the case of leather, too many stitches may very well simply trim the image right out of the material; and, I am told, there is also a tendency for digitizers to "pack" their digitized image full of stitches because their fee is usually based on the size of the image as determined by stitch count.

For this 928 Sport Seat Project I finally decided to have the logo(s) done up in all white for 2 of them and in light gray for the other two. Then I would be able to decide which I like the best. After they were stitched, Doug and I decided to put the light gray versions into the seats, although there appears little difference from the ones stitched in white, as you will be able to see in the photos to follow.

Aside from the esthetics of the overall theme for these Sport Seats, one reason I didn't use black and perhaps some red in the stripes (as I had done before) is that another thing I have learned is that the black thread in my S4 seat logos is now a dark silvery gray and the red is pinkish. I think white or light gray will more likely stay that way. The fading seems to be in spite of the thread being "colorfast."

Doug had cut the four pieces of leather out of the medium/dark gray well enough oversize so that we would have plenty of flexibility in centering/locating the crest where we want it (them). Now that the light gray versions are trimmed to pattern size we will be able to start sewing up the seat back covers. They will be done seperately from the cushion section inserts.

The pictures will come in a few sets of five. Its probably overkill, but it was facinating to watch.

Jerry Feather

Here are five more pictures, in sequence.

Jerry Feather

Another set of five in sequence. The last of "these ones" shows the computer screen where it shows we are at 6445 stitches into the total of 10075.

kelanel

Now im Really getting tempted..... Keep up the great work jerry!

Stromius

Great progress....neat tools there ^^ too

Jerry Feather

And five more pictures.

Jerry Feather

Another set of five pictures. In the first of these the machine operator has taken one of the pieces out of the machine because at the very end which is where the stitching was spelling out Stuttgart, the thread had balled up on the last two letters. She is carefully trimming the thread off the back with a little electric clipper-like devise and then she picked the thread off the front. Then she used a piece of felt backing to relocate the stitch program and then put the leather piece back in and restitched the last two letters.

Jerry Feather

Here Doug and I have selected the light gray versions of the logo and we have trimmed those out for later sewing into the covers.

Jerry Feather

Dean_Fuller

A whole new level of awesome.

3000teeth

Like!

MarkRobinson

Nice job Jerry!