"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile) 05/04/2018 at 09:20 • Filed to: Galaxie

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( Repost for day crowd ) Here’s a possibility for replacing the fabric on the Galaxie’s seats. I kind of like it.

Here’s what it looked like before/after fading:

Both more gold and... more boring, actually. I think splitting the baby by having more gold *and* more green has potential.

By way of explanation, I don’t have much hope of finding a 1:1 match for the original, because it doesn’t show up on sms auto’s listing, and “if SMS does not show it, it does not exist!”

It has a “trim code deviation” shown on its data plate, so I have reason to believe “gold bathrobe terrycloth lulz” is what that means. There might be only a dozen other cars with this wacky shit in them.

Die-Trying > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/03/2018 at 20:28

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it could be time to find a couch to kill, and skin it for its hide.......

that would be a nice close match for your seats though......

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Die-Trying 05/03/2018 at 20:42

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Easier than finding and killing 4-6 old men in identical bathrobes and stealing them.

Nothing > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/03/2018 at 21:26

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Can you see your own upholstery? That’s pretty impressive. I would prefer to replace the parchment color comfortweave on the Cougar with comfortweave, but the only place I can find the true perforated comfortweave vinyl (SMS, the sample was perfect) is quite pricey. And that would just be buying the fabric. I’d still have to have someone sew me up for me.

Part of me says screw it, out in some black Procar seats and call it a day, but the other part of me knows while they would be comfier, they would be uglier and not what I truly want.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Nothing 05/03/2018 at 22:57

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I have an aunt with an upholstery grade sewing machine and I have hognose pliers and some experience with sewing machines, so I may do it myself. The seats are far less complex than the lincoln ones I also have (pleated!), and should he pretty easy if I go that route.

I figure remove the covers, glue/baste patches on the back of a couple damaged spots in the vinyl, and then separate the chenille from the piping line (which is just folded vinyl) with a seam ripper. Use the old chenille as a pattern, sew the all of *one* new piece per cushion (4 big pieces total) with an ordinary hidden stitch through the piping and vinyl, and done.

Cushions seem more or less okay, but I may see what I can do with them too.

punkgoose17 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 09:48

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I like it. Go for it.

shop-teacher > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 09:50

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Looks good to me!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > punkgoose17 05/04/2018 at 09:54

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It’s a weird case where going back exactly original is not only impossible, but not as good as going back *sort of* original, because the green that it faded to is a more appealing color overall. o_O

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > shop-teacher 05/04/2018 at 10:00

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I know, right? Coarse fabric, maybe slightly coarser than original, but with stripe spacing and texture almost identical to original, and green/gold instead of gray/gold or gray/green. The green is the same as the current (faded) green and the carpet, and the gold is the same as the gold it was originally. Acrylic backing so stuff won’t soak through, tough open fibers so it’ll stay cool better than vinyl or leather replacements.

SmugAardvark > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 10:12

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Go full-on early 2000's baller.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > SmugAardvark 05/04/2018 at 10:18

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punkgoose17 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 10:20

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How did you go about finding this fabric? Is this from another car, or is this an available couch upholstery? (just curious)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > punkgoose17 05/04/2018 at 10:31

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How did I go about finding it? Well, let’s see now. First, I looked into what covers were available in. Limited, although Mac’s does now offer a gold/gold cloth options for whole new seat covers they didn’t when I started. Dry well. Went on to trying to find the right stuff via SMS. Nope. Tried to ID the fabric by description. “Is this a chenille, or...”

Spent hours and hours searching upholstery websites and trying to pin down the description of the type of striping. Searches by color, weak results, because I didn’t have the key words pinned down. Finally, I found a pattern with close striping, and (IIRC) managed to find the code for the material, looked it up elsewhere, and found a variant with the gold and green as above. (period of nearly a year goes by while I work on other things...) Then had to look up that p/n a couple of places to find somebody who sends samples.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as horrible as it might have been had I not gotten some experience doing this searching for ‘59 Lincoln seat fabric. Which SMS has, but I didn’t know that starting out.

The material is an upholstery fabric. Not listed for cars, it’s just industrial grade couch covering.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 11:05

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It’s really too bad that the drapes from the house I lived in as a kid are gone, that could have been a cheap fabric source for you.

Kidding aside, looks like a decent match, albeit a bit more busy than the original was?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW 05/04/2018 at 11:09

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It’s not got any higher line density over the base color, it just seems like it due to the fade. It’s about the same % breakup between the two colors and the background, and similar spacing. The two colors involved are brighter, true.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 11:22

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I think it’s the brighter colors leading me there. I do think that fabric will look great with that new carpet you have there — there’s nothing quite like a nicely done interior from an early-mid ‘60's ‘Murican car—

Chariotoflove > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 15:23

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I like it.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Chariotoflove 05/04/2018 at 15:46

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Given that I like it better than the original (or at least, what’s left of how it originally looked), I don’t see any reason for the good to be the enemy of the best. Particularly since this will be both cheaper and tougher than original spec fabric, and I can get it resewed for a HELL of a lot less than the $500+ price tag on a new set of seat covers. Probably done in an afternoon. It’s about $44 a yard, which means $176 plus tax/shipping to cover front and back.

Oh, and the front seat is an oddball - Galaxie 500, but a non-split bench, so it’s sewn differently than a base model *or* “normal” 500, and flat-out isn’t what is available for sale. Replace the front bench, or all the seats, just to have something I can re-cover, so I can break the bank twice? I think the fuck not.

Chariotoflove > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 15:52

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Durability and clean-ability are paramount.

Die-Trying > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/04/2018 at 17:45

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now would be THE TIME to get the interior re done in mexican blanket motif........

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Die-Trying 05/04/2018 at 17:59

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Well, I’m looking at kind of the low key version of that. Which is still pretty keyed up.

shop-teacher > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/05/2018 at 00:05

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Definitely. It has the right look and feel to it.