Incremental Post: Thoughts on seat recovering

I'm not quite ready for the "look at my awesome, cowhides" post yet but I'm learning some stuff I thought I'd pass along.  I used this post on Pelican as one jumping off point in tearing open my seats to recover them in leather.  I read through dozens but that one is pretty comprehensive and I don't plan to reiterate all of what's in there.

As is often the case with me, the 2nd time I do one of these tasks it becomes a LOT easier, quicker & the quality of work rises.  I did the driver's side first, it took me 2+ evenings to carefully disassemble that first one, taking lots of pictures, trying to note all the little nuances of the tucks, hogrings & tabs, not to mention I tried to remove the covers so they could be reused (they are in nice shape really).  I then spent 8-9 hours on a Saturday cleaning & painting the frame and placing the new leather cover on it.

I steamed all the foam (thankfully it's also in pretty nice shape) and covered the bolsters with new batting.  I found out after I'd already glued on the backrest insert leather to it's foam (first) that it's nearly impossible to get the hogrings on the bar directly under the headrest.... but I got it. I also feel like it's better not to glue the center sections to the foam (I didn't do much as I wanted them to breathe) as it seems to cause spots to bunch where you don't want them to and might otherwise even themselves out.

The result from the first seat is about 90% pleasing, it's far better than a botched job we actually paid for by an upholstery shop a while back.  There are some wrinkles in it, and you can see (just a little) the batting under the bolsters.  It does feel incredible to sit in.  I was told I could take the steamer to it and get some wrinkles out, a google search indicates that it just might work so I'm going to try it before I take that first seat back apart to redo it with my new-found experience.

I went at the passenger seat yesterday, I had the backrest apart and recovered in about 2 hours.  This time I did not use the "plastic bag trick".  My seats have a slicker covering on the backside of the headrest (which may not be on all?) but a bit of smoothing and rubbing and coaxing had the cover over it very nice and smooth without the plastic bag.  I attached the hogrings right under that headrest first, then worked my way down both side bolsters (no added batting this time) and it's tight and smooth and looks better than the first.  Finally I placed the new seat heater in the insert tacking it down in 1 spot only with glue, using no glue on the spot where your back touches this time, only on the back side, also attached with the outward bent staples.

I'll report more as I get further along with them.