LeBaron Bonney - Seat Cover Install

Most car guys really wanna avoid upholstery work at all costs. You know, it's a different skill set than wrenching or painting on a car. And there are companies like Laverne Bonnie who, uh started out just doing early Ford stuff and begin with concourse restorations, uh upholstery Supply House. And as time went by, they acquired Hampton coach and Easy Boy. So now they offer a complete line of products for whether it's, uh, Oldsmobile, a Ford or a Pontiac.

They've got an interior kit for you and even now for our 57 desoto project, uh, going through their Easy Boy Line, they had patterns and could develop a product that, uh, kind of had our fifties kind of flair to it yet was, uh a new product offering. The, uh, the seat covers are, you know, have sort of that fifties kind of feel to them with the narrow pleats to the nice wide borders and French seams, you know, they have a nice fifties kind of flavor to them. We were able to actually pick up a set from Easy Boy and we're gonna go through the process of actually putting these seat covers on the frame. And in doing that, you know, the first thing we had to do is we stripped down these seat frames, we sandblasted them, got them painted ready. And, uh, what we'll do is we'll put on some burlap to actually cover the springs.

We'll follow that up with some jute padding that will actually give our seat frame surface some nice reinforcement. And then we'll add either some scrim foam and some foam to kind of pad it out in places to actually make it feel and fit the way we want it to. Now, you can do this yourself and most guys do it takes a little bit of time, a little bit of patience, but you know, to show you exactly how, how it should be done. Uh We're gonna bring in Gary who's uh actually done a lot of automotive upholstery and uh has the expert knowledge to do this right to get started on our project. What I'm gonna do is cover the seat springs with the first two layers burlap and followed by two more layers of jute.

You are going to need a pair of sharp upholstery shears. Jute is a really tough item to cut with just the regular everyday fisker. So a good sharp pair of shoes will make your life a lot easier with our upholstery kit. There was a pair of hogging pliers that were supplied, definitely will pay to invest in a nice cushion grip and spring loaded pair just for your ease is gonna make your life so much easier. But hog rings are simple, two sharpened points and a simple squeeze and a create a mechanical fastener.

Installing the hog rings is self explanatory. Just wanna get your material gathered right onto the edge and then decide where you want each of your fasteners to go and install your hog rings to cover the Juke padding on the seat springs. We are gonna cover a one inch automotive grade foam. The easiest way to cut foam is with an electric knife to secure the foam to the dew padding. We're just gonna use a little contact adhesive.

The way contact adhesive works is you need to apply adhesive to both surfaces. You're trying to adhere together and then let it tack up dry before you're trying to stick the two pieces together. Because the scrim on the seat cover itself tends to wanna grab a hold of the foam on the seat frame. It always helps to install a thin one mil layer of plastic to help it slide right on because the seat cover, seat inserts are stitched using half inch scrim for the pleated sections and only a quarter inch on the outlying borders. We decided we were gonna pad it up a little bit using some more half inch scrim to glue into the inside of the cover to give us a nice full flat look on the seat cover after the clear plastic and initially starting to fit the cover, went ahead and started hogging in it from the back, pulling the cover into the holes that were drilled in the frame.

Every seat frame is a little bit different. You may have tack strips, staple strips or you know, just the raw edge of wire from the seat frame to attach your seat covers to this one had holes, um, started in the back work the way out, then moved around to the sides to later to the front. You may need an extra hand just getting the cover pulled over the frame. See covers that are supposed to fit tight. That's how you don't end up with sags or wrinkles.

So be prepared to wrestle with it a little bit to get it to fit the way you want it to. As you can see, Gary's done a great job of stretching this La Bear Bonnie cover over the seat frame. It really has like a nice professional look to it. And, uh, it looks, it looks great. It's gonna be a perfect addition to a ride.

You know, Le Baron Bonnie's interior products are, you know, they'll, they'll fit some, uh, you got to do a little bit of padding sometimes a little tweaking, you know, to get something to fit and that's where it pays to have somebody like Gary who's done a lot of upholstery work, know exactly what to do to pad things out and get them to fit better, great product. You should really consider this, you know, instead of riding around in that, uh, ratty interior in your, in your car. Now, go ahead and, uh, make the investment and you'll be glad you did.