Mark Kikta

Here is the picture after re-installation of my robe rail

Yesterday was cold and windy outside so I finished putting my robe rail together. Last week I received my robe rail ends back from the platers and they look great. As I said earlier in this thread, I decided to plate the robe rail ends and cover the center tube with leather. This is opposite of the factory configuration of a plated center tube and painted ends, but I think it makes more sense and I like the looks better. Since I had to drill out the plugs that were inserted in the ends to hold the tube in place, I inserted a brass tube inside the steel tube so I could drill and insert a couple small stainless sheet metal screws to hold it together. I didn't worry about the phillips head on these countersunk screws since they are underneath the robe rail on the back side and you cant see them unless you are on the rear floor laying on your back. Thought I needed to say that before you purists ding me. LOL After assembling the piece, I took it out to the car to make sure it fit properly. Then I skived a piece of leather to cover the center tube with. I skived it so the leather would be easier to sew when I put the edges together. So I sprayed the backside of the leather with upholstery spray glue, leaving the long edges un-glued so I could maneuver them in order to sew the long edges together underneath. I also sprayed the center tube except for the area where the sewn seam would lay. So after letting the glue dry a bit, I carefully laid the leather cover on the tube edge to edge. Then I started hand sewing the edges together. After sewing the entire length, which took quite a while, the cover looked terrific and fit smoothly. When the robe rail is mounted to the seat, you will not be able to see any part of the sewn seam. I hopefully will have time to mount it on the car later today. I'm quite pleased with the results with this.

I think it looks great Larry.

That car is surely loaded for a trip!!! I'm sure it was a blast! As far as the top goes, practice does make perfection in theory! great offer ! Great to have such trusting friends too.

That looks great Larry. My 22 footrest was full of tacks and I used the same thing. None were decorative ones on my car. My carpet was also snapped in place and bound around the footrest.

Yesterday I decided to finish making my Hidem trim to finish off triming my front seat. I have attached a series of photos detailing each step along the way. I needed a total of about 14 feet of Hidem Gimp. I needed 3 1/2 feet for the Dash Trim and 10 feet for the front seat trim. First I skived five, 2 1/2 inch wide strips of leather to get that length done. Then I sewed the strips together at a 45 degree angle in order to keep the bulk extra leather spread across Hidem instead of all bunched up at one straight seam. First step actually making the Hidem was to sew a 3/32 welting cord along one edge of the leather strips. I used stiffer hollow plastic cord so that my Hidem had some stiffness to it. For the next step, I sewed the same 3/32 cord along the other edge of the leather. I used a 1/8 in piping foot on the sewing machine for both of these evolutions. Next I needed to fold the leather over itself into the center and sew each of these sides in place. I decided to try the large 5/16 piping foot on the sewing machine and it worked well for me. As long as I kept the two edges of piping folded over and held in the center, the piping foot pulled them both together and sewed one side in place quite well. The I simply reversed the process and as I ran the Hidem back in the other direction through the machine, it pulled the edges together again and sewed the other side in place perfectly. In the end I am quite happy with the results. My leather Hidem is between 5/8 and 3/4 inches in width which is what I was hoping for. I was even happy with the way the seams came out. They are not all that noticeable. Now I'll make the side trim for the seat back so I can finish off this front seat project.

Jan, Thank you for watching! I get my 1/2 and 1/4 inch jute from Southern Upholstery Supplies on ebay. R, Mark

Wow, That is certainly a different 22 seat back than I have seen before. That certainly has more seams than mine does. My seat back steel cover had only 4 small holes and they were for the robe rail screws. No lights, no pockets, nothing else. It had just a single seam across the center of it. Big change by 1924/25. We got the seat back cover installed last evening. I'm waiting for some supplies now to make the Hidem and seat bottom trim. Thanks, Mark

Here is how the back of my front seat looked when I started this project. I stripped the covering off the back and I could see where the moisture in the glue caused a good bit of surface rust I sanded it down with 80 grit and 220 grit sandpaper and then treated it with a phosphoric acid solution (Ospho). After letting that stand for 48 hours, I primed the metal and painted it with a good coat of semi-gloss black paint. After another 48 hours we glued the thin layer of cotton batting in place as our next step will be to install the vinyl cover. We have it sewn together ready to install.

Mario and Suzanne, Thank you for watching our progress and for those kind words. We are both learning a lot for sure! We have received a great deal of help & encouragement from a lot of folks, like yourself, on this forum which we really appreciate. Kathy retired as an Interior Designer and now that we have figured out our commercial sewing machine, She is already collecting materials and parts to re-upholster some dining room chairs, and who knows after that. She has signed up to help me do the top for the Buick after we finish the upholstery. That will no doubt be another BIG learning experience! Thanks again for your encouraging comments, Mark and Kathy

Today I tried to make my own Hidem gimp trim. I skyved a piece of leather to make it thinner and used some very thin welting to sew into Hidem. Here is a quick photo of what I made compared to a piece of what I purchased from one of the model T parts houses. I believe I need to make my leather a bit wider so the Hidem is wider as well. I used a 2 1/4 inch piece of leather so I’ll switch to 2 1/2 in wide and try it again.

I used the cork seals on my 1922 windshield as well

Larry, Thank you for the kind words. I too visited a couple of the only local shops and did not get the feeling that they were particularly interested in doing the upholstery in Mable either. I always like to try and learn new things so after installing a couple interior kits in my old chevies over the years and with my wife’s sewing talents, we said what the heck, let’s give it a try. It is far from perfect so far but we are doing some of this together which has been fun. Kathy says it’s a lot harder than the sewing she has done before being clothes and curtains etc. I just like using that beast of a sewing machine we bought used. It will sew through anything.

We took the cushion cover that we made, along with the piping we made and the pleated side pieces and we sewed them all together. We chose to sew the piping to the side pieces first and then sew that assembly to the seat top cushion. We sewed the front straight section (center 8 pleats) together first and then fit that assembly to the springs so we could mark how we needed to cut the leather pieces to fit around the corners. Then I stuffed the pleats around the sides of the seat with 1 inch thick cotton batting. I used two pieces of hard styrene plastic to compress the cotton and slip it all the way into the pleats. Then I slipped the styrene out one piece at a time. After we sewed the cover together, we took it to the car to do a test fit and see how the pleats & seams lined up with the seat back. we lined the pleats up and took it back to the basement work bench to start tacking it all to the frame. After we tacked it in place, we took it back out to the car ( for the 4th time) and test fit the cushion again. We were pleased with the results and worn out from a day of carrying that seat from the basement to the car and back and stretching, pulling and tacking. Now I'm waiting for the materials to make the trim that covers the bottom edge of the leather around the seat bottom. At that point I'll trim the leather along the bottom and cover the edge with the trim I make. After I finish this cushion, I will install the backing on the backside of the front seat. Then I will need to make some leather hidem trim to cover all the tack heads around the top & back edge of the front seat. In preparation for that, I bought a hand leather skiving machine so we could skive (thin) the leather to make this trim. I have never done this before but you can see here that it actually works. My test piece of leather was basically cut in half and it should be plenty thin to make the hidem. More to follow as I progress.

So Kathy and I tackled putting the back cushion together for our front seat. First I removed the seat back springs which were just temporarily installed for fit checks. Then I started from my center mark along the base, and tacked the bottom of the seat cushion cover in place. It was just too hard to do with the springs in place. So I covered the springs with one last layer of cotton and then in integrated it with the cover. Each side of the cover(L&R) had a flap sewn in place and the flaps were just the right size to wrap around the side of the springs and hog ring to the back edge. This provided just the right spread of the seat cushion. Then I attached the springs and cover attached to the seat frame. The springs were originally attached at 5 points along the back frame by leather straps so I tried to duplicate that same technique. Working from the center marks at all time, I first tacked the seat cushion on the center seam to the centerline mark I had place on the seat frame back. We then worked from the centerline outwards tacking the cushion in place pulling out cotton, pushing/pulling and stretching the leather and folding when required to tack all in place smoothly. We tacked the cover in place using the seam centerline marks I placed on the back. We didn't want to end up with a bunch of curving seams when looking at the seat. In the end, I am very happy how this has turned out. We fit the seat bottom in place afterwards to ensure it fit ok. We also laid the seat bottom cushion in place just to ensure we have all of the pleats sewn so that they line up with the seat back pleats, and they do. So we are off to cover the seat springs. More to follow in the next post!

With all of the cold nasty weather around here in Maryland this past weekend, we got a good bit of upholstery work knocked out. I even got some help from the boss doing the sewing on the seat cushion fabrication. I was pleasantly surprised that the pleats seemed to line up between the seat back cover and the seat bottom cover. I managed to cover the jute pad on my seat bottom with the horsehair pad to give the seat bottom a bit firmer feel than using just cotton for padding. Might use one layer of cotton on top of this next. Then I cut strips out of leather to cover the cording to make the seat piping for the edge of the seat. I used 3/32 cording which is the same as the original and covered it with leather using the special foot on out sewing machine. It really worked well. We also cut out the leather pieces for the skirting that goes around the sides of the front seat cushion. I plan to use leather on the front and both sides and then use vinyl on the back. Next to mark the pleats on that material and sew it together so I can stuff it. Hopefully all of the pleats will line up with those on the cushion cover.

I add 5/8” to the leather

So here you can see the backside of my leather seat covering ready to stuff. I starting stuffing them last evening with the jute pad and cotton strips as show here

I just completed my testing of some different stuffing materials in my test front seat back cover before I started stuffing my real seat back cover so I can stop obsessing about what I should use. I first did them all in just cotton as I showed earlier in this thread. I re-stuffed two pleats with one layer of rubberized horsehair and cotton. I didn't like that because the pleats felt rough along the sides from the prickly sides of the rubberized horsehair stuffed inside. I had previously stuffed one pleat with a 3 inch wide piece of 1/4" jute. I liked the full feel but the pleat looked too "tubular" for my taste and too round. So this time I tried one pleat with a 3 1/2" wide piece of 1/4" thick jute and cotton. I liked this one the most. The jute made the pleat stay a little bit wider so it didn't look so tubular and it felt nice and full. So I'm off to start stuffing my real leather seat covering now. The only issue I am concerned with now is trimming that jute padding back to fit properly inside the pleat as I attach the seat cover along the back of the front seat. Cotton pulls out easily but I'll have to carefully cut the jute.

That's a very nice looking car!

Good luck with that. There was no usable grease left in any of the ones I took apart. Might want to ensure you check for some lube on those gears in there.

Jan, I stuffed the pleats with 2 layers of 2inch cotton batting each. That was my test piece made of vinyl. Now I will stuff my leather covering. I might experiment a bit??

I drilled the pins out of the robe rail last night and took the ends and center tube apart. Sure enough, that brass covering was once nickel plated. I guess because the brass covering and/or plating had been damaged, someone painted it over. Seems like your blankets or whatever would easily slide off a smooth plated tube. I think I will definitely have the ends plated and cover the center with leather. Not 100% original but it will look good and function well.

Thanks Larry, My parts book clearly shows that my model should have had a plated tube and black ends but I see no signs of plating on the tube anywhere. The brass covering on the tube is covered with a thick black paint. I’ll have to drill out the ends to get the tube off so I can get the ends plated. Maybe I’ll do that and re-use the steel tube and make a leather cover for it?? Not exactly correct but it would look nice.

Tonight I decided to look at my robe rail and I discovered that there was a rough texture cover on the center section that was split open on the underside. Trying to remove it, I realized that it was a brass wrap covering the center portion and it was painted with a rough texture paint. The brass wrap also had a hole rubbed in it. I removed the brass wrap totally to realize the center section under the brass was a rusty steel hollow tube that was also split open a bit along the seam. Anyone else seen this and if so, how did you deal with it?