Seat upholstery pattern

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Deuce
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Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

I'm looking for the patterns for the seats of the EM corvair. If anyone knows of any. If not, does anyone have their old seat covers. I can use as a pattern. I have a 63 Monza 900. I need all three seats. If there are no patterns out there we will create them after the tear down of the covers and you'll be able to get them from us. Thanks for any help we can get.

Deuce
Deuce

63 Chevrolet Corvair Monza 900
66vairguy
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by 66vairguy »

Unless you are good at upholstery, or don't want the stock pattern, I'd just go with the Clark's upholstery. Very good.
Deuce
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

My wife is a tremendous seamstress. We know upholstery is a little different but we want to try our hand at it. She has a great resume for her sewing. She been a costume designer for six flags, she's down some really expensive wedding dresses, custom corsets, etc. She also did my motorcycle seat, that was a little rough with compound curves and reshaping the seat that we did. I think between the both of us we can knock this out of the ball park
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by bbodie52 »

The Corvair Monza 900 series utilized only vinyl upholstery in their interiors. Cloth upholstery was only found in the Corvair 500 and 700 series. Clark's Corvair Parts does offer vinyl and cloth materials, if desired. But if you take the time to view the video below and look at the sample pages at the end of this post you may start to understand just how complex and difficult it is to reproduce and properly sew seat covers, door panels, and other interior upholstery components. Clark's has spent a great deal of time and money learning to reproduce these items in a very high quality. They also offer tools and hardware that would be needed by the do-it-yourself Corvair owner who wishes to restore the interior of the car.

The first link following the video takes you to the first page of the Clark's Corvair Parts catalog section that is applicable to interior restoration and upholstery. I would recommend watching the video and then browsing through the pages of the upholstery section to get a better feel about the process of interior restoration. Generally, I feel that it is impossible for the Corvair owner to properly reproduce seat and interior upholstery items. Just learning to properly rebuild the seats, replace and fit the foam items, interior seat components, and upholstery covering items requires a serious learning curve and careful work utilizing the proper tools and hardware. Clark's has positioned itself as a worthy part of a team effort that can produce a beautifully restored car interior that, with their assistance, can help the DIY Corvair owner to achieve an excellent outcome.

The video below will take you on a tour of the Clark's Corvair Parts upholstery department. It may give you some idea of what is involved with making and sewing the seat covers and other upholstery items. Clark's has refined this process to the extreme. You should find the video to be informative and educational...


Another Clark's video - Making Corvair Upholstery...
...gives you an ideal of the work and effort that makes Clark's upholstery quality possible. Imagine not having this service available!

Clark's Corvair Parts - Upholstery Tour

Published on Jan 21, 2013
Tour Clarks Corvair Parts Upholstery shop and see how upholstery, door panels, top boots &
gaskets are produced.


The above video is part of a series that can take you on a complete tour of the Clark's Corvair Parts facilities. If you wish to see more, click on the link below…

CLARK'S CORVAIR PARTS TOUR — VIDEOS

:link: http://www.corvairforum.com/forum/viewt ... =81&t=6004

:link: http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/catalog ... &page=261D
Image

:link: http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/catalog ... N&page=263
Image

:link: http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/catalog ... &page=269D
Image
Brad Bodie
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by 66vairguy »

Deuce wrote: Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:19 pm My wife is a tremendous seamstress. We know upholstery is a little different but we want to try our hand at it. She has a great resume for her sewing. She been a costume designer for six flags, she's down some really expensive wedding dresses, custom corsets, etc. She also did my motorcycle seat, that was a little rough with compound curves and reshaping the seat that we did. I think between the both of us we can knock this out of the ball park
Decades ago when I was more ambitious I took a course in upholstery and learned you need an "industrial" sewing machine with a "walking" top foot. You can make do with a heavy duty sewing machine. I had a car that nobody made replacement upholstery for. I got it done, but it was a huge job.

You need to use UV resistant vinyl or cloth and of course a top quality synthetic UV resistant thread. A buddy bought a Corvair a few years back with a home done upholstery. It looked good, but a few years out in the sun and the upholstery literally disintegrated because the cloth was not UV resistant.
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by 64powerglide »

:goodpost:
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Deuce
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

This is one of those areas that helps to know more about each other. This is my fault, because if I throw out our resumes it would seem I was a liar. God has granted me with experiences that most would never have.

We own close to 30 sewing machines including a walking foot Juki machine. We have more equipment than most costume shops. A lot of the time the local costume shops ask my wife to take on there overload and more complicated designs. Granted she's never done upholstery besides my bike seat.

I understand why y'all are directing me to Clark's. Although it feels we are being discouraged for taking on this venture. Again my fault because I haven't described what we are trying to accomplish. We are going to remake the design that the original fakes. For instance where the panels are heat fused we will actually stitch. We will be doing our own tuck n roll. We will attempt to use the original card board if possible but I'm sure we will have to refer to Clark's for whatever needs to be replaced.

A little of my background includes being a co-owner to a lowrider shop.this shop included upholstery. We did more than lowriders of course. We made it into lowrider magazine in 2000 I believe, sorry can't remember exactly and lost the copy of the mag in a divorce. I wasn't the upholstery pro by all means. We had a guy that did the sewing for us then. We just designed and installed.

We are gonna use a metallic orange in the tuck n roll areas and basic black vinyl for the rest. The heat fused areas and the top stitched areas will be top stitched with orange stitching. We contemplated doing orange piping but that may be pushing it too far. We want to keep the original design just step it up.

Please keep giving your advice, ideas and opinions! We really need it no matter how big or small, positive or negative. Thanks y'all!!!

Deuce
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by 66vairguy »

WOW - who called you a liar?? Nobody here. The responses were conditioned on your experience - nobody suggested you could not do it.

Sorry if I offended. I won't make the mistake of wasting my time responding to you again.
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by bbodie52 »

:eek: That's the trouble with communicating on the Internet… Lacking information we often have to fill in the blanks with an array of assumptions based on past contacts and experiences. Clearly it is not normal to come across someone with your range of equipment and past experiences. Many of us assumed that you were overreaching and did not fully grasp the difficulties in stitching and designing upholstery. So we offered what information we had and hoped the outcome would be valuable to you.

If you do decide to proceed with a custom upholstery project for your Corvair, I hope you will take some photographs and document your progress. If the outcome is as good as you hope it to be, I hope you will share the results of your efforts here on the Corvair Forum! Good luck with your project.

:tu: :not worthy:
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by toytron »

Deuce, what great America do you do costumes for?

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Deuce
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

I don't my wife does. She used to be a costume designer out at six flags. Shes a paralegal now but does side work for the local theaters and six flags. I own a vape shop and work in the film industry as a Special Effects tech/coordinator.
Deuce

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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

Don't think we are rich by all means! That's a Hollywood lie lol
Deuce

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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

66vairguy I never said anyone called me a liar. I said it would seem I was. If you reread it you'll see. Sorry if it sounded that way.
Deuce

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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

Bbodie52 don't fool yourself we are overreaching. I know what's involved but never did the sewing/assembly part. But my wife is very talented but doesn't know what's involved. With both of our talents we have come together on other projects and left jaws dropped. I won't settle for less here. The difference between this and what we've done in the past is this is upholstery. I'm sure it's gonna get me divorced again because I'm anal about things, but it should turn out great. I most definitely will post pics even if we fail. Which will not happen lol
Deuce

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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by Deuce »

As a matter of fact 66vairguy, I'm glad you mentioned the UV protected material. Because it had slipped my and my wife's mind. Because we were thinking of using material we had for the metallic orange. We don't remember if it's UV or not.
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Re: Seat upholstery pattern

Post by peacecat3 »

Hey y'all! Thanks for all the input. I'm Deuce's wife; I'm the one who asked him to post here to see if there are any extant patterns for these seats so I wouldn't have to invent the wheel, so to speak. I've never done upholstery before, but I've been sewing now for about 20 years, half of that professionally, and I'm always looking for a challenge. I worked for years in costume shops, and still do whenever there are deadlines their crews can't easily meet.

@toytron: I spent a bunch of years out at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio, so I haven't made costumes specifically for the Great America location. However, SFFT has the best costume shop (more machines, more space, more crew) of all the Six Flags locations, to my knowledge, and the Six Flags parks swap among themselves, so it's possible you've seen my work! I built mainly '50's style dresses, but also worked on Halloween costumes as well as dance costumes and Looney Toons. I've also built costumes for live shows in Branson amusement parks as well as Dollywood.

I've built stuff from simple aprons to elaborate wedding dresses. My specialty is corsetmaking. And I think I've surprised Deuce by wanting to do this project. He was all for simply getting covers from Clarks before I decided to tackle this.

I've worked on industrial sewing machines for a long time, and have have four industrial sewing machines at home, in addition to maybe 20 domestic machines. I went out and found an old industrial Juki walking foot machine specifically for this Corvair, and she and I are learning how to be friends.

So, the TL;DR version: I'm pretty sure I can do this, and I'm looking forward to any tips or tricks any of y'all have! Are there any other resources you know of, either for technique tips or for materials and/or patterns?

@bbodie52: That Clark's video was groovy! Thank you for sharing it! We're looking to deviate from stock vinyl and go full custom on this interior. My super-ambitious/masochistic side wants to try to tackle the headliner, but I might finally listen to Deuce (don't get used to it, honey!) and just buy it.

@66vairguy: I tried to do some upholstery with my regular industrial machines and they DID NOT like it at all! We fought each other the whole way. I definitely agree with you that a walking foot machine is needed. You are also very right about the UV fabric. Thread, too, now that I think about that.

-peacecat3 :fro:
https://www.instagram.com/rmb_corsets/

@B
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