Half leather seat trim conversion

[Ginger60 0]

Hi I am ponderin the possibility of retrimming my G60 with half leather (possible suede like M5 BMWs..) has anyone achieved this personally & had good results? I may do it myself if Its possible.

 

Ta guys,

[ben16v 0]

IIRC US interiors and some EU special editions had half leather try german ebay?

 

also search for KADVR6 for home done retrims

[Andy665 0]

My Recaros are trimmed in leather and Alcantara - re-trim was done by MJ Interiors

[KADVR6 0]

My Recaros are trimmed in leather and Alcantara - re-trim was done by MJ Interiors

 

that cheating by sending them away to be done, REAL men get out the sewing machine and do them themselves :lol:

 

its not that hard to do, and i would say using alcantara that it should be even easier than using all leather?? if you want any pointers Ginger69 feel free to ask.

 

karl

[Ginger60 0]

Hi Karl,

 

Thanks for your message! Your seats are impressive! Yeah man that would be great if you can give me pointers! Did you do the rear seats too? How much are the materials?

 

Thanks again,

[KADVR6 0]

her ya go James, viewtopic.php?f=19&t=52808 this quicky shows you what i did, but if you need/want anymore info, just pm me mate.

 

karl

[Ginger60 0]

Karl thats awsome I thought as much, I will probably look into an industrial sewing machine then!

[KADVR6 0]

you will not need an industrial sewing machine James, but a modern sewing machine just cant cope with 2 layers of leather. so you need an old sewing machine, preferbly one that has the foot pedal mechanism???? and the most important thing is the thread you use, get the most expensive leather thread you can get. The last thing you want is to get them all sewn up, and then when you go to stretch them onto the foam the thread breaks??

Trust me when that happens, you will swear LOTS.

[Ginger60 0]

Thanks Karl, I would concur entirely, no point doing it half arsed!

 

My nan had a decent industrial one like that... cept shes now dead so bit of bad timing lol

 

My respray in 3 weeks... cant wait man!

[KADVR6 0]

well if she's no longer with us!! she wont mind you borrowing it??

[Ginger60 0]

My old man put her in a home & rented out the house towards the end so the stuff went then :(

[TimDoc 0]

Guys, nice to meet u all, not spoken to any of u before, i have just completely reupholstered my VR6 in cream leather. Luckily my old job was in textile design with heavy duty fabrics and foams so i had a few skills to carry into the job. A few tips for anyone going to do a home made job - once you hace dissected all of the parts of the seat fabric and sketched round them on the back of the leather hide, take those olde seat parts and try to stich them back together as neatly as possible and refit it to the seat, you will get a good idea of how you need to manipulate the materials. Also take note of the little notches that have been made in the edges of the patterns, they are there to match up with notches in their adjacent piece - v. important. Mke sure any sewing maching you use has feet that are both walking feet or you will scuff the leather at the thicker pieces. Also, one line of sewing is not strong enough in leather, it will cut through when any pressure is put on it. Once sewn you must turn both of the hems to one side and sew alongside the join, this will create a nice neat seam with a single paralell sewing line beside it. Sew all the seams allowing more hem than you think as this will create a tight finish with a neater look. There is no need to buy any foam pads for your new covers, just include the old ones with a new cover over the top! Below are the pictures of my finished result, I am about to purchase another interior that i am going to do in black leather. I plan to then see which i prefer and sell on the colour i dont. I will get them up on the forum when i have decided which ones to flog!

 

[Ginger60 0]

:shock: I am astounded at the fantastic result you got there man!

 

Awesome well done its very inspiring I will give your advice some serious consideration in the process! Thankyou for the drooling pictures :lol:

 

By the way how much leather did you need & the average cost?

 

Cheers again.

[TimDoc 0]

you need to buy 3/4 full sized hides, there is a chap that i bought these hides from who's doind a deal on ebay at the moment but will also sell to you outside ebay (is kosher), they were hides tanned for jaguar! He's doin them for just under £60 per hide and has loads at the mo, but only in this colour, other colours are more expensive (black at £90 per hide). I paid £240 total with postage. If you do a good job you've saved youself between £2.5 and £3K! The co are called martrim (google finds them) give them a call as their website is crap, talk to josh hibbert and he will sort you out. Have fun. Tim

[Phil K 0]

Looks pretty good but it is a bit on the baggy side... is there anything that can be done to tighten the leather up on the foam?

[Ginger60 0]

Thanks mate!

 

I think it looks superb!! I will give all this some serious thought in the progress. Not too keen on light colours as will show any dirt or marks, but even at that cost its a good deal.

 

Cheers again :)