Recovering a seat
 

There has been some questions on here lately about recovering seats and buying seat covers. I recovered my seat today and figured I'd show just how easy it is to do it yourself and save a few bucks.

This winter somebody stole my seat off my cart but thankfully BGW member "Mr. Club Car" had one available and we were able to make a deal. The seat was in pretty good condition but would need to be recovered to match my other seats and would need some work to repair a missing corner. The first step as to go to the local JoAnn Fabrics and get some black marine vinyl. Total investment for the vinyl is about 25 bucks to do the bottom and backs, just to do the bottom is about 15 dollars.

This is what I started with, my helpers confirmed that the seat was good other than the missing corner:

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Today was garbage day in my neighborhood so I snagged this beautiful sofa cushion as a foam source.

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Peeled back the vinyl but left it on to hold the foam in place as I sculpted the new corner. I know what you're thinking "that corner looks like crap". Well, you're right, it does but there are a few reasons why. First, the spray adhesive wasn't doing a great job. Secondly, I intentionally left the corner bigger because the cushion foam was less dense than the original seat foam. I wanted the new foam to be smashed down a bit by the new seat cover so it would become firmer and match the stock foam better.

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After the corner was done it was time to get the new vinyl on. I start with the longer sides first. Staple one side down and then you can really get a good pull on the vinyl to get it good and tight before stapling the other long side down. It's helpful here to have an extra set of hands but apparently my head assistant was busy test driving his newest cart....


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The corners, the hardest part. You can go about this a few different ways but I choose to take the easiest and quickest way myself. I look at it almost like you would when wrapping a Christmas present. If you take your time you can fold the corners over and get a pretty good fit on the corners. Make sure you do things the same side to side so all the corners look the same.

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Once you do the corners you can reassemble and you are done, of course you always need to clean up (or you can have an assistant handle clean up duties).


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Re: Recovering a seat
 

I should add that despite using all that extra foam in the corner I still could have used some more honestly. The finished result wasn't bad and it's definitely good enough that I'm not going to undo my work but if I had to do it again I would make the patch even bigger so that it would firm up more as it compacted down.

Re: Recovering a seat
 

I recovered my seats on my first '96 cart I bought back in 2009.
That's exactly what I did; went to Joann, got some gray marine vinyl and covered the bottom and both seat back.
It was very easy and looked great!

Re: Recovering a seat
 

We are always our worse critics! They look greed dude! Well done.

Re: Recovering a seat
 

FYI They are having a sale right now. Its like 8 bucks a yard. ITs usually 16.

Re: Recovering a seat
 

Looks great ! I had a fire last year so needed new foam. Jo anns sells decent foam also. I just finished redoing mine.

Re: Recovering a seat
 

I saw that online the other day, can't beat that. Can recover your seat bottoms and seat backs for less than 20 bucks and about an hour's worth of time.

Re: Recovering a seat
 

great job i need to do this next week

Re: Recovering a seat
 

Looks great. Be a buddy and head on out here to California and take care of mine?... ;)

T

Re: Recovering a seat
 

^^^

My wife says that is something I (we) can definitely help you out with. I will provide all materials and labor free of charge in exchange for the two cheapest airline tickets you can find. :lol: