Author Topic: Sewing machine ?  (Read 2832 times)

CdRsKuLL

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Sewing machine ?
« on: April 23, 2010, 08:48:22 PM »
Well I have a few bits to trim on my car and was thinking about having a go myself. I have even gone about finding a decent cheap machine to do the job.. I was recommended this......

http://www.sewingmachines.co.uk/Janome110_info.htm

I was thinking how hard can it be ?

Has anyone ever thought or even covered anything themselves ? I have my doorcards to do and fancy having ago at some other bits...

any help or advice.....

Steve

AIG1355

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2010, 10:05:13 PM »
any help or advice.....

Yeah, give the sewing machine to the Mrs as a present and ask her for a favour ;D

dangerrous

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2010, 07:55:47 AM »
Scottish and italian good quality hides are around £150-200, my little ol' car will take 4+ The trimmer explained that only certain parts of the hide are suitable for the seats etc.
 Although you would save on the trimmer's labour, are you willing to possibly mess up a £200 hide?
 A car of such quality deservers the best of what you can afford, a wrong stitch here and there will spoil the whole interior. Don't take my word for it. Have a look at some of the builds at stoneleigh. Pick a fairly nice car, then scrutinise the interior for an out of place crease, go away then come back to the car later and try not to look at that crease again.
 Any flaws in your interior will always bug you.
D

Lambolambo

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2010, 08:35:42 AM »
I believe sewing leathers requires industry grade kind of sewing machine.

But oem murcie interior's leather are really silky soft.
It is very expensive.
I brought the center console to get price and was quoted about GBP200 to trim the main bottom big piece of the center console itself.
top another gbp200-250 to trim the rest of the covers!  >:(
But they really worth that kind of money compare to those normal leathers.
IMPOSSIBLE? Tell yourself "I'm-possible!"

Drew355

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2010, 12:37:41 PM »
Depends how much you want to save money, I have played about a bit with trimming using leatherette on an old seat base & although its harder than you think, you can get a decent job. I assume you just want to trim the door cards interior bits & central tunnel, these shouldnt be too hard with only one or maybe two lines of stitched edge (i.e. unlike seats where you dont tend to have excess at the sides to play with & your stiching liens are critical)
I used an old but houshold singer machine which handled the leatherette, but I would say you would need something more substantial for genuine leather unless really soft.

I would go with dangerrous about not wanting to screw up genuine leather, but if you want to give it a try, a 2 or 3 metre length of leatherette shouldnt cost you more than 20 quid & will give you a good idea of what you are capable of. Personally for interior parts, other than seats I would go for leatherette every time, particularly since its black.

One thing too is dont use loads of padding under the leather/ette. It needs some but only enough to remove any imperfections & to give it a slightly soft feel. Having a squidgy thick dash is one of the things I hate about loads of kit car interiors!

The dash could benefit from a covering, just to make it blend fully & maybe to remove some of the telltale mr2 features like the clock (& add circular vents). That bit would probably be quite tricky though!

Bill

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2010, 07:35:40 PM »
I 've just bought an industrial sewing machine second hand for about 100£ .
If you want to sew leather a normal sewing machine will do it but you have to change your needle for a special leather one and also the presser foot could be changed by a "roller foot" .
There are good videos on you tube showing many things about  automotive leather upholstery
Here's then link then clic on other 18 videos and you'll see , it's very intresting , and like me you'll want to do it yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk3zBgvdepo

nick355

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Re: Sewing machine ?
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2010, 11:41:52 AM »
i bought a 100 quid budget sewing machine from argos.
I did buy the proper leather needles too, but to be honest havnt changed them - since the standard one works fine.

Doing straight stiching, french seams etc ... are relatively easy. BUT the problem i found - was the machine doesnt like
slow starts, the motor doesnt have enough torque at low speeds to start the stiching off. Once its moving, no problem it hammers away like a good un'n ! I suspect you guys that have bought the industrial sewers dont have this problem. ( ps - have got a teflon foot  :P, but didnt really make much difference )

Covering flat sections, goes really well - but the problem i've found is internal corners, i am struggling covering the central instrument binnacle
on the 355, since you have numerous internal corners. I have read, that you should only glue your coverings on the edges ( ie not all over the flat surfaces ) This allows the material to move with heat changes.  BUT on an internal corner, sometimes the only way is to glue the covering to the foam at this point. So if anyone has any tips on this part - would be interested to know !

Hide type, where are you guys getting your material from ? I got some off ebay, but it was way too course a grain. There are some other sellers sending a sample before i make the same mistake again !

Foam, i've been using 1/4 open cell foam - since its easily available and suits the 355 amount of oem style padding - however, books suggest that you should use the closed cell foam ( ie you can actually sand this foam ) type for dashboards etc ....but it just doesnt seem avaliable in the UK ?

- On a side note, have you see how they do it on American hotrod, by 'Gabes interiors' - complete custom interior in about 2 days !!!!

Bill the youtube link is a good one, and note how slowly his sewing machine will stitch.



 

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