Upholstery

[Bill Pape]

Does anyone have upholstery experience???
Has anyone tried to recover the dinette and / or the sofa couch??
Is a heavy duty profession sewing machine needed?

[chiplamb]

I dropped the sofa pieces and parts off with the upholsterer along with a roll of fabric. $800 later and some cussin, I had a new sofa. Recommended unless you are good with the sewing machine and like making cushions.

[Bikeboy57]

I have reupholstered the entire interior. Sewing is not hard. Look into the walking foot Sailrite Ultrafeed sewing machine. I also made all my awnings, and slide out toppers.

The machine has paid for itself many times over during the coach ownership. For example, when I ripped the salon slide out topper, Zipdee quoted me 950 for the replacement fabric. I bought the sewing machine for 500, and the Sunbrella for 100 bucks and made the replacement myself.

[Hisham Amaral]

Bill one of the engineers who work for Lear seating does upholstery, he did my airplane seat and side wall trim he is good. If you need his number please call me. I talked to him last year. he is still around and reasonable. If lost my number John Wyatt will give it to you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family..

[Ernest Ekberg]

Brenda did ours in the 83 pt40. Just a regular machine

[Captain Fred]

Bill,
Go to the sailrite website and they have instructional videos on how to do most anything with a sewing machine. We have a sailrite walking foot machine and it will sew through a number of layers of heavy material. They really are heavy duty. That being said we were looking @ magnashade windshield covers and when we priced out all of the materials we found that the cost savings to DIY would be about $200.00. Figuring it would take several days to complete it would not be worth DIY. Recovering the upholstery can be done but it is a lot of work. We ( really Donna ) have made several sets of cushions and covers for the boats and they came out well but it is a lot of work.

[jwasnewski]

I have done it with a walking foot machine. Also need an air staple gun and hog ring pliers.
I did the couch and chairs in plaid. Matching the pattern was a challenge.

[Redeyedtreefr0g]

I made a cover for a super comfy couch once, and I chose a beige fabric with brown/black plaid to help hide various colors of dog hair. I was SO PROUD of it, because each and every seam was matched up so perfectly. I kick myself for leaving that couch behind during a move.

Those sewing machines look very nice!

You can sew heavy materials with a regular machine, if you really need to, and are very careful and patient.

[Bill Pape]

Thanks for everyone's input and replies, Our driver, passenger seats and barrel chair have been recovered with Ultra leather, by Randy's small shop in Bainbridge, Dee and her daughter do an excellent job for a very reasonable price. But I am trying to decide to enhance my sewing skills and reupholster the BB couch, and few furniture pieces and drapes for our home.

[1984Lodge]

Go for it Bill... that reminds me I need to finish my dinette project... we got stalled when the fabric we ordered was no longer available. Have a regular sewing machine for now.. we may need to get something heavier for doing the front captains chairs. I think for fabrics a regular machine is fine.