Mustang Interior Color Change Update

Earlier I posted that I was changing the color of my interior from charcoal to black. 

This is a quick update on what I have been doing.

There is a lot more to changing the color of your interior than one would originally think.  At least it is more work than I had originally thought.  :)

One of the things I am doing is building the seat upholstery for the car.  When I say I am building it, it means that I have purchased all of the materials needed to cut and sew a custom interior together.

In this picture you can see that I have my seat material, some foam and a white muslin type material. 

All of this is needed to create your seat upholstery.  There are several tools that will also be needed, but I will save that for another posting.

In addition to this material, I also bought some other black fabric that I am using for the listing wire attachments and the border around the seats for that listing wire.



Don't worry if you don't know what all this means, I will explain it in another post coming soon.

Prior to doing all of this, I had several questions in my mind, what was it going to take to sew some seat material.  It can't be that hard right?  I mean a sewing machine does most of the work all you have to do is feed the material through it.  What could go wrong?

Ah, how misinformed I was.  I had read some articles on how others had done this and how easy they thought it was and whatnot.  I read they were doing this on a normal sewing machine and all went well, and they finished in a weekend.  What I didn't read (or at least pay attention to) is that they were making their seat covers with cloth.  I don't know if you noticed in the pic or not, but I am not using cloth.  This is actually a faux leather material.  It isn't quite as hard as a vinyl, but it isn't leather.  It feels like leather and is soft, so I figured why not try it out.

Ok, in my research I found that I needed a sewing machine.  But not just any sewing machine because I need to go through a thick material.  I needed a sewing machine that had metal gears in it.  This type of sewing machine would have had to come from prior to the mid 70s.  After that they started using plastic gears.  I would have shredded those gears on the first seam I sewed.

I found the sewing machine that I was looking for (or so I thought).  It was from the early 70s, had metal gears, and worked.  Best of all, it was free.  What did I have to lose?

Ok, remember I said I was sewing through this faux leather?  What I didn't account for was also sewing through the foam and the muslin.  Don't forget to multiply this by 2 since you are sewing your layers together.  Needless to say, this sewing machine did work for this task, but I went through about 40-50 needles in the process of making the covers.  If you plan do do this yourself with a material that is not cloth, get an industrial grade sewing machine.  It will have heavier duty needles and they won't bend or break as easy. 

I am sure you are itching for a few pics of what it is I have done...  I will throw in a couple teasers, but no finished products.  :)  That is for another post.

 In this picture you will see that I have duplciated one of the sections of the back seat bottom.  You get a good before and after look in this picture.

 At this point I had both sides of the back seat bottom done, all that is left is putting the wrap that goes around the outside to keep it secured to the seat. 

 Here is a picture of my sewing station.  My wife wasn't the happiest camper for me using our kitchen island, but she let me do it anyway.  :) 

In this picture you can see the early 70s Sears sewing machine that I used to make all of my upholstery.

I know I said no finished products, but this is as close to a finished poduct as you will get without being installed on the foam.  This is the head rest.  All in all, this was the easiest piece to make.  There was no foam to sew thru on this piece.  The hardest part was the curvature of the piece to go around the headrest.






I am about 90 percent finished with my upholstery.  I will post another update when this is done and show some before and after photos if I can.