Jon B.

Well, they DID look familiar! I'm glad they are doing you some good Jerry!

Jerry Feather

Hi Jon. I am sure that sport seat cores that have been stripped of their covering don't look like much to many beholders, but I could tell when I got these that they were going to end up in a very high level condition.

Doug called a little while ago while I was under the GTS4 fitting a newly designed and formed liner mounting bracket and said that he was in the middle of sewing up the covers for the seat back cushion section inserts. It looks like we will be doing the final covering and maybe assembly this weekend. I told Doug that I need to get these in the car by the fourth, which will more likely be on the fourth.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

Yesterday at lunch time I stopped by Doug's shop and found that he had sewn the basic cushion section panels to the contrasting valley floors and was then in the beginning stages of sewing the gussets in. Here are a couple of pictures.

Jerry Feather

Dean_Fuller

Looking good Jerry. Can you show pics of HOW he is sewing the end caps? That might be the most tedious area sewing wise...at least for me.

Jerry Feather

Hi Dean. I can't show a picture because I didn't take one, and Doug has finished that sewing already. Howver I can tell you about it.

First, the cushion sections are designed to be 3 1/2 inches wide front to back and 3/4 inches tall. The foam intended for them is one inch tall and just about an eighth inch wider.

I cut the end caps, that I am calling gussets, to the exact size with a tail on them about two inches. I allowed for 3/8 inch seam allowance. That means that the caps are 4 1/4 inches by about 2 1/2 inches for the seat bottoms and by about 3 inches for the seat back ones.

What Doug did with each of them is to lay one of them on top of the cushion section sewn up with the black strips, by centering it at the corner or the intersection of the top and side seam allowance and matching that up with the little chalk marks you can see it the photo just above here. Then he works the piece around the seam from the matching corner and down the 3/4 inch edge of the cushion and then onto the black strip to where the cap ends. Then He sews from that point back to the corner, then across the top to the next top corner and then down that side to the bottom of the cap which comes out a little bit short on the black strip.

Good luck in trying to understqand this, Dean.

Jerry feather

backnblack

Jerry can you show us how that middle piece goes in ? I can't get enough of this thread

Jerry Feather

Hi Matt. By the "middle piece" I take it that you are referring to the cushion section/insert that fits into the middle of the seat backs. If so, once it is stuffed and covered it will simply be shoved into the recess that you can now see is intended for it.

Doug and I will be putting some velcro along the sides and across the top of the back of the insert and the mating pieces will be afixed to the spring loaded wires in the seat back. At the bottom of the insert we will put a couple of plastic tabs that will engage the tab slots along the lower part of the insert opening in the seat back frame. I'll try to show some close-up pictures when we get to that.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

Matt, look at the second picture above in post 54 and you will see one of the basic foam frames for the cushion section inserts located in one of the center openings. It is simply pushed in there and held by friction at that point. JF

Jerry Feather

The day didn't start out as I had planned with further progress on the WW Liners because Doug called and wanted to put some time in on the seats. Since we are pretty much doing this together and since I kind of have to let him dictate the timing, I felt compelled to go. It was worth the effort too because we got the seat backs 99 percent finished.

I have forty pictures of the progress so I'll show them in sequence with some explaination as I go.

When I got to Doug's shop he had already completed sewing the gussets or end caps into the cushion section insert for the seat backs. I had before this cut the foam into strips for these cushions.

When Dough and I had sewn up the sample sections I think I showed before the leather had come out a little too loose. So, since we are using one inch foam we made the material for the cushions only 3/4 inch thick and we wanted sections 3 1/2 inches wide, so I cut the foam to 3 5/8 inches. I figured that wound give us some foam tension on the leather and hold the leather more snug, and yet not round out too much from the squarish look that I want.

We also decided to cut the foam and extra inch long to allow for some endways tension against the inside of the cushions.

I put the loose un-stuffed cushion leather into one of the seat tops just for anticipation. Then Doug is spraying glue onto the edges of the foam and the seam areas of the leather cover.

Jerry Feather

Here Doug is first glueing the end of the foam to the under side of the seam allowance that will be on the inside of the cushion face and then he is pushing the foam into the cushion and carefully glueing the seam allowance on the black leather strips that go across in the valley.

Jerry Feather

There is the first of the comploeted cushions (one out of focus) and then more careful stuffing and glueing.

Jerry Feather

Here this set shows some of the effort it takes to get the larger foam accurately stuffed into the slightly tighter leather coverings. You can see from some of these how the extra inch of foam length is being delt with in the process.

Jerry Feather

Here Doug is spraying some glue on the back cross strips that will be glued to the original foam backs that I have sculpted some with my disc sander to smooth them up some. I have also marked the areas where we will want the valley strips glued down.

You can also see by a couple of these just how nice and crisp the new design of five cushion section are starting to come out. Wait until you see them fully glued up and inserted.

Jerry Feather

Here Doug is starting to glue the now stuffed cushion sections to the back inserts with the ABS plastic I had previously glued on them for some extra body, just for this purpose.

There are also a couple of pictures of the foam cutting jig I made up before to allow me to accurately and cleanly cut the foam into consistent strips. I used it again today to cut some form for the tops and bottoms since they are slightly different widths.

You can also see the tangs or tabs that I fabricated a few days ago and just now have glued to the back inserts. These will engage some matching tabs in the bottom of the inside of the seat backs that were not used by the original fabricator of these seats. I thought if they are there we ought to use them.

I keep putting the partially finished inserts into one of the seat backs because I just can't wait. Too, I had to make a trial fitting of the glued on tabs to see if they are going to do what I want in respect to holding the bottom of the cushion insert in place.

Jerry Feather

Here We have the cushions in place but not yet finalized at the bottom. Also Doug is starting to work on the bottom of the seat back sides where he is stuffing them to fill them out and getting ready to close them up nicely.