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Once your old car or truck’s seat spring has been prepped and padded (Old Cars Guide to Auto Restoration, Summer 2010), it is now ready to have a cut-and-sewn cover fitted and attached to the spring and wood frame.
The following steps for installing seat covers were undertaken on the interior of a 1931 Ford Slant Window Town Sedan, but the guidelines can be applied to many other models.
The first step is to trim any excess cotton from the stuffed channels in the cover, as it may affect the trim of the welting if it is not done.
Next, use chalk to mark the center of the front and back of the cover borders and the centers of the front and back on the bottom of the wood frame. These marks will be used as reference points to ensure the cover is properly centered on the spring when attaching.
Now you are ready to apply the cover over the spring. Begin by lifting the borders of the cover so they won’t interfere when placing the cover on the spring. Lay the cover on the spring and pull the borders down over sides.
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Attaching the cover to the frame
With the cover resting on the spring, turn the unit over. Then, starting with the front border, align the border center mark with the frame center mark and staple the border at the center to the underside of the wood frame with a couple of staples.
It should be noted that stapling the cover to the wood frame is done in a series of steps, pulling down the cover front and back a little at a time to get the correct fit. It is not done in one step, but more a process. This first pass is just to get the cover on the spring in a loose fashion so it can be worked to a correct fit. After stapling at the center, staple the front corners.
Now apply this same procedure to the back border, except apply corner staples about 6 inches from the end. Do not staple the corner; if the corner is stapled, it would interfere with finishing off the back corner of the side panels.
At the bottom and back of the side borders, pull down on the cover over the frame, attaching it with a few staples.
The cover is now on the spring in a rough fashion. What follows is tweaking the cover front, back and sides to an appropriate fit. This will take several passes to complete. Also, the side back corners will have to be tweaked and finished.
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Tweaking the cover
Start the tweaking process in the front. Measure 6 inches down from the bottom of the welting and mark reference points with chalk along the front edge of the panel every 4 to 5 inches. The height you want to end up with along the front of the cushion is 6 inches. The 6-inch height is not a hard fast rule, but generally 6 to 6-1⁄2 inches is appropriate for this make and model. Heights for other cars may vary.
Then, starting at the center, pull the border down until the reference mark on the border is at the bottom of the wood frame. Staple. (You will have to remove old staples as you re-staple.) Now work out toward the sides, pulling the cover down to the reference marks and stapling every 5 to 6 inches. Next, pull the side borders down and back and attach them at the end and bottom of the frame with one or two staples. This is done by eye.
Flip over the cushion and “beat” the cover with a bat of your hand to help smooth out the cover. This will help take out any looseness. At this point, the cover fit is starting to take shape.
There may be puckering on the front corners. This can be corrected by pulling on the ends of the welting and batting/slapping the corner at the same time. This will take up the slack in the welting at the corners, which is causing the puckering.
Final adjustment of the front welt
With the cushion turned over, look at the front welting. You are after a straight welting across the front of the cushion, 6 inches up from the bottom of the wood frame. Begin to staple between the other staples, adjusting at the same time so the welting runs straight across and approximately 6 inches from the bottom of the wood frame. This is a trial-and-error process and you will have to remove old staples and re-staple more than a few times.
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Once satisfied with the front, focus on the side panels again. Pull up and back and staple again. This is done by eye. If it looks good, it probably is.
You may find that the front corners need additional attention. They may be sagging and look under-filled. This can be corrected by using a blunt 12-inch stick to stuff cotton into the corner between the spring edge and cover. After filling the corners to your satisfaction, and to get a nice taut welting around the corner, use a pliers to pull on the core of the welting, batting the corner at the same time. This little trick should finish the corner nicely.
After you are satisfied the front welting is straight across and the corners are filled, staple the cover to the frame every 1⁄4 inch or so, making any smaller adjustments as you staple.
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Final attachment of the back panel
You are now ready to continue to secure the back panel to the wood frame. The back panel, which is made of denim, should end up with an exposure of about 5 inches from the bottom of the wood frame to the end of the denim. This can be done by eye, starting at the center and working out to the ends, but stopping about 6 inches from the ends to allow room to finish off the corners.
Finishing the back corners
At this point, you are ready to finish the back corners. Begin by removing any excess cotton in the back corner up to the edge of the edge wire on the spring. (Photo N) Next, the end of the edge welt must be pulled around the corner, back and up, and then attached with a hog ring to the top edge of the spring.
This will begin to clean up this part of the corner, where several pieces have come together. (Photo O) You may have to release some of the denim staples and remove some more cotton to access the top of the spring to hog ring it. After attaching the hog ring to the welt, finish stapling the side panel flap to the frame. (Photo P) Then put the denim over this and staple to frame. This will finish off the back corner, except for one final finishing detail.
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Photo R
Final back corner detail
To finish off the corner, bring the two sides panels of the corner together. This can be done by sewing them together, which is time consuming, or by placing one hog ring just below the edge welt as illustrated in the picture. (Photo Q) Once done, you will have a nice, neat, finished corner. Aside from any final tweaking you may want to do, and there may be some, your project should be completed. (Photo R)
You can see a video of this process, and other instructional videos, by visiting www.LebaronBonney.com or on www.YouTube.com by searching for LeBaron Bonney.