Finding new places for 928 interior work?

Danglerb · 04-10-2008, 05:17 PM

Paul Champagne posted on rennlist he is cutting back his work schedule, no more complete interiors, just seats, steering wheels and knobs after a few weeks of rest. This means Rob Budd is about to get swamped with work.

Some of us may need to learn how to sew on leather. ;(

Having done my share of sewing work, its not something I think I would want to try and get good enough at to please myself. Leather isn't forgiving, once the needle makes the hole, it stays a hole and unless hidden easily noticeable.

We need to find some new good places to do 928 interior work. Anybody know of a place, list it here.

John Moch is in Orange, Cal, but generally doesn't work directly with customers, doing steering wheels for a few local shops, and focusing on bass fishing.
http://www.moch-1.com/

911blex · 04-10-2008, 06:08 PM

For those of you live near Madison, WI, I recommend using Custom Color Specialists. I recently had the owner (Steve Kind) redo the front seats in my 1988 S4. I was very happy with the quality of his work and found his rates to be very reasonable. Steve has also done an excellent job on several other cars for me (i.e. Maserati, Mercedes, Ferrari, BMWs, etc.) In addition to reupholsteing seats/interiors, he can replace individual sections/pieces in your seats, redye worn spots, and completely strip interiors of all dye to change the color. His contact info is:

Steve Kind
Custom Color Specialists
4611 Dove Tail Drive
Unit 16
Madison, WI 53597
608-850-4788

RyanPerrella · 04-10-2008, 06:19 PM

How do you know he posted on RL DanglerB? You have another lurker account no one knows about?

Naughty naughty!

MPDano · MPDano's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanPerrella

How do you know he posted on RL DanglerB? You have another lurker account no one knows about?

Naughty naughty!

Lame statement Ryan. Anyone, including me can READ and not log into that "Other" forum.

Danglerb · 04-10-2008, 07:43 PM

I read rennlist a couple times a day, can't pass up that level of drama, I just can't post, see images hosted on rennlist, or search the forums.

It would be nice to keep this thread on topic, so I will delete/edit this message, and would appreciate Ryan and Leo doing the same.

Ryan if your serious about learning to sew leather, these are good machine, old Union Specials show up cheap used.
JUKI 553 Heavy Duty Leather Industrial Sewing Machine

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150233319774

Union Special Industrial Sewing Machine.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110241596394

Thunder · 04-10-2008, 07:54 PM

Seems Rob justs subs work out and does not do the actually work but could be wrong.. Seems Garrity and Dave do decent work too, out of Utah. Rob IS not the only shop in town!

Look up, in your area interior work for auto's, there are many places that can do the same quality work he can do. Paul does outstanding work, try and get Paul or Garrity to do some work they decide to call quits on the work.

Thunder · 04-10-2008, 08:02 PM

Seems Paul is filled and and has to recoup from all the quality work he and Linda has done, Great for them to recoup and recover from all the fantastic work they have done! for the 928 community.

Paul Thanks so much for all the effort and all the upgrades in the interior work you'll have provided. Hopefully not everyone will just copy and call them their own, but if they do, we know were it came from.

MPDano · MPDano's Garage

Yeah I have to agree with the top notch work I have seen on their website. I am sure the quality has to be awesome up close and personal. Someday, that Ostrich Leather will be mine

RyanPerrella · 08:29 PM

i had no idea you could still access RL if you were banned, Dano, i supposed you too were banned. Is there anyone on this forum that hasnt been banned from Rennlist? Damn, bunch of misfits the lot of you huh?

Yeah i am serious about learning to sew leather. I have wanted to "dangle" in it for awhile actually. If i had it my way i would have everything in every car covered in leather. I have an addiction, and sadly i cant afford to feed it, so learning to do it myself would be a big plus.

Thunder · 04-10-2008, 09:39 PM

It;s not hard to sew leather. Just hard to sew on the quality that Paul C sews at.

Danglerb · 04-10-2008, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder

It;s not hard to sew leather. Just hard to sew on the quality that Paul C sews at.

Sewing at any serious level of expertise takes years. Even with good sewing skills and experience on leather you still need to know what to do, and that second part is where most upholstery places fall flat. They don't know the stitching required to duplicate the factory look.

I figure it won't be that hard to find someone to do the sewing part that has the equipment, skills, and experience. What I suspect we will need to learn ourselves is what to tell them to do, and how to install the end result.

Normy · 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanPerrella

i had no idea you could still access RL if you were banned, Dano, i supposed you too were banned. Is there anyone on this forum that hasnt been banned from Rennlist? Damn, bunch of misfits the lot of you huh?

Yeah i am serious about learning to sew leather. I have wanted to "dangle" in it for awhile actually. If i had it my way i would have everything in every car covered in leather. I have an addiction, and sadly i cant afford to feed it, so learning to do it myself would be a big plus.

Hi Ryan! I'm not any sort of misfit at all, "proud" or otherwise. I just don't care to patronize that "shop" anymore; I don't care for their management. I don't patronize the Porsche dealer anymore either, since they "aligned" my car...and my tires wore out within 5000 miles!

As to interiors, I had a local guy in Orlando do my interior in 2001. He stripped ALL the leather on my interior [dash leather left in place and sprayed], and resprayed it in the same color as the carpet kit that I ordered. The car had a "grey-beige" interior, but I thought it was champagne and ordered that carpet kit. Trouble was...I liked champagne better, and I had him match the carpet. I bought new leather seat surfaces in black from Alan Gunn leather, and had the interior guy dye the rear seats black, since they were in good shape.

When I bought this car, it had vinyl seats that stuck to your skin, so I had to do something. The black and champagne look worked very well.

What is needed in 928-world is a padded leather armrest on both sides. I put a stick-on section of felt from Wal-Mart's craft section on my center arm-rest and left arm-rest, but that is just to lessen the pain on my left elbow. This helps, and since I used black, it actually looks fine....but this isn't the best solution.

Mr. Champagne's work is second to none! Check out his ostrich-skin interior in his 928 some time! Not my taste, but it shows his talent.

-THE 928 SEAT is a difficult thing to get right. There are special rings, and a special tool that engages those rings...that is necessary to get the leather to cover the foam bolsters the correct way. My car isn't done right, and the leather sags every which way. That's what happens when you hire a guy who points to a bulletin board with a bunch of assorted muscle cars/collectables/Ferrari's and who tells you "yeah, I can do it, it's just like all the other cars I've worked on...". That's why my bolsters are unsecured, and don't look right.

=======

My advice, if you are looking for someone to do your interior in your area? Go to the car club meetings and ask around. Someone will point you in the right direction. The guy that did mine up in Orlando took three weeks when he said it would take one, and in the end half the interior was loose- he didn't screw anything down when he was done, and I wound up doing half the re-assembly my self.

N!

Fabio421 · 04-11-2008, 05:20 AM

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the seats use hog nose rings like every other seat.

Yes, Paul does awesome work. I expect to have a package from him waiting for me when I get home. Nothing major. At least I got a shifter boot from Paul before he stopped. I had asked him about doing my dash, pod and center console a few weeks ago and he stated that he was booked up for the next year. Yikes!!! I think he will be taking more than a few weeks off. My bet is a few months at minimum.

Get well Paul and Linda.

Danglerb · 04-11-2008, 09:16 AM

Hog rings are used all over, including on hog noses. The ring is a wire shaped like a C, and the pliers have a groove in the pinching end that squeezes the C closed, bending it into a tight "ring" as is used to seal the end of a bag or sausage.

Three types are common for getting into tight spots.

The cheap ones for making cages and annoying hogs, may not be the best choice for upholstery.

Mike B · 04-11-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder

Seems Rob justs subs work out and does not do the actually work but could be wrong...

Interesting...What makes you say that? I ask as a customer in progress of Bob's. That's how I know he is already too busy too take more orders.

For the record, Bob has been nothing but A+ in everything to do with my order which pretty much includes an entire interior...I mean pretty much everything.

Danglerb · 04-11-2008, 06:49 PM

Sewing leather is about the highest paying sewing job, but its still sewing which means two maybe three times minimum wage for a top skilled person, why on earth would you not sub it out if you can?

Talking about subbing, I recall someone saying ASAP (Santa Monica I think Cal) subbed all their work another shop, which I can't recall right now. Anybody know?

Fabio421 · 04-12-2008, 07:33 AM

Rob does sub out his sewing. At least some of it. Here is a quote from his website.

"I work with two experienced "trimmers" who handle all the leather cutting, sewing and finishing.

Remon is an interior engineer and leather craftsman with over 20 years experience designing and fabricating interiors for Lear Corporation. After striking out on his own several years ago, Remon was called upon by Jay Leno and Lear Corp to travel to LA to help design and fabricate the interior on two of Jay Leno's collector cars.

Check them out in our Gallery

Pete is a retired leather craftsman having spent 30 years with Ford Motor Company working exclusively with leather interiors."

m21sniper · 04-13-2008, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanPerrella

i had no idea you could still access RL if you were banned, Dano, i supposed you too were banned. Is there anyone on this forum that hasnt been banned from Rennlist? Damn, bunch of misfits the lot of you huh? :eek.

I wasn't banned. I just told Randy to go F himself, and left of my own accord. Never been back since. Not even once.

We have a really good local shop here in Philly that does my 928 interior work. they restitched a center console for me, it came out really nice.

Danglerb · 04-13-2008, 11:28 PM

I let my body guy sub out my seat while some paint work was being done, restitch my steeringwheel that had good leather and just frayed thread, and to fix my driver seat which felt like some support strap on the bottom had broken.

Results so annoyed me I stopped driving the car for months. Steering wheel was actually nicely done, except for ONE FREAKING stitch where the leather overlaps on the left side of the upper arm, a tab of leather sticks up instead of lays flat. Seat had like 2 inches of extra pad stuffed in, making the seat height WAY too high and apparently messing up the motors underneath. Unfortunately at the time I had bigger fish to fry and couldn't spend time on it, or didn't want to .

Now that I have settled down a bit and my first instinct isn't to wring someones neck Homer style, I plan to revisit the problems and see if I can educate the person into a proper repair. I think this may be the situation for many of us, not just finding a good shop, but training them to meet our expectations.

m21sniper · 04-14-2008, 04:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogue

Too much is made of this thing with 928 upholstery/interiors. Nothing really unique about a 928 interior, outside of the cracking dashes and pods, warping rear quarters and expensive Sliverknit carpeting which bunches up for life if it gets wet. The concept is simple: Quality shops will do quality work, crap shops will do crap work. If you take your car to a shop which does mostly Indian blanket seat covers for pickup trucks and the occasional patch job, you'll get what you deserve. Nothing mysterious about 928 seats, steering wheels, etc. Lots of good shops with leather experience can be found all across the country. You're not reallly looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack on this one.

Agreed.