Trimmers - Question About Diamond-Tufting

[RansomEli]

I have received a lot of valuable advice from the trimmers on this forum. Thanks for help us amateurs out.

 

I'm building a brass-era speedster and want to reupholster my seats. I'll be using leather and horsehair padding. No foam or sewn pleats.

 

Question. I want to practice first using vinyl, but have heard that vinyl does not fold the pleats properly like leather. Is this so?

 

It would be much cheaper to practice a few times with vinyl, but I do have some leather hides that could be sacrificed for the greater good.

 

Also, what backing to use to attach the buttons? I have heard about a fabric called Versare and also FlexPad.

 

I know the complexities involved but want to try. There was a 1-cylinder REO for sale on the HCCA website recently - the ad stated they paid over $8,000 for the diamond-tufted the front seat. The seat looked beautiful, but I am not prepared to spend that for my raceabout seats.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

 

[nsbrassnut]

Yes, you can do it yourself. I did the interior in my '05 Cadillac. Spent a full winter figuring out the process.

 

It does help to practice with vinyl first, much cheaper than leather. But you have to find a good flexible vinyl to practice with. Both leather and vinyl come in a range of stiffness. You need to pick materials that fold easily.

 

The old fashion way to do this is to use the special "prong buttons" and washers for attaching the face to the backing. They are getting harder to find, but they are out there. The upholstery is made by making a sandwich with the leather on one side and a backing cloth on the other. Then the two are joined using prong buttons and washers. The original backing material on my  Cadillac looked like sail cloth. Drop cloth from Home Depot was a close match and I used it with success. Buttons held on with cord that are used in furniture upholstery won't work properly.

 

It is a process. I did my practice seat four times in vinyl before I settled on the right pattern for installing the prong buttons an how to stuff the material to get even pleats.

 

If you like feel free to PM me and I can share what I did for my project.

 

 

[pmhowe]

4 hours ago, nsbrassnut said:

If you like feel free to PM me and I can share what I did for my project.

nsbrassnut, that is impressive. It makes me think I just might be able to do the seats for a Packard rumble seat coupe I have (with no tufting) and redo the seats and not botch the job totally.

 

I know it is a hassle, but please do take the time and effort to share what you did for your project on this site. It will help me and probably countless others.

 

Thanks

[BryanC17reo]

Very nice job, I hope to gain the experience to do my 12 Reo The fifth soon!

[A Woolf]

 

 

 

Yes, you can do it yourself.  Just to be clear I am not professional and am pretty much self taught.  The photo is the work I did on my car a couple of years ago.  It is not perfect but the judges at the Amelia Island Concours were complimentary.  It is traditional diamond tufting over horsehair.  

 

A few things that may help you get started:

1. Go download this book from Google.  It is an old book about upholstery and top work and it has a lot of good information not only about diamond tufting but things like the height and slope of cushions and how to do the diamond layouts.  

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Motor_Car_Upholstering/ITgyAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Motor Car Upholstering&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover

2. If you need them custom seat springs are available from Snyders Antique Auto Parts.

3. Don't scrimp on materials.  Keep in mind the amount of labor is going to be the biggest part of your upholstery work.  I see a lot of very nice cars where it is obvious they were trying to save a buck on materials.  

3. For practice , I would suggest buying some small cheaper leather  hides and practice making sample panels.  I didn't have good results using vinyl to practice tufting.  Mel Draper in Jeromesville, Ohio, 419-606-0181 sells decent hides at a reasonable cost.  He also sells horsehair.   I used nearly 30 pounds of horsehair on my car. It takes a lot more than you might expect. 

4. Prong buttons are readily available but they come as blanks and will have to be covered with your material.   I bought a buttoning tool and covered my own buttons (its a simple job) but if you don't want to buy the tool for a one time job I think a local upholstery shop could cover them for you.

5. Sewing diamonds is an option.  Many cars in the era (Model Ts for example) used a combination of sewing and buttoning to form the pleats.  Most of my work is sewn.  I found that I could get a better result by sewing the patterns.  

6. Hopefully David Coco will chime in.  He was generous to answer some of my questions.  

7. Ask if you have questions.  I am not an expert but I can offer my experience.  

Alan 

[RansomEli]

Alan, 

 

Thanks for the additional info.

 

I know Mel Draper and have purchased some leather practice hides and horsehair from him. He is also a fountain of knowledge for one-cylinder REOS. Very nice guy.

 

[nsbrassnut]

Here is a try at describing what I did for my project. This is the process that I worked out for my project. Your approach and mileage may vary. It can quickly turn into a bit of a “dissertation” so please be patient with me.

 

Here are a few pictures from the files to help you get started with ideas.

I did review some car upholstery books for ideas, but most that I could find at the time didn’t cover early style button tufting well. So, most of my ideas came from trying to think like they may have back then, combined with lots of trial and error.

I convinced myself that when a factory has to make hundreds of these up, they would not do it “free hand” and would develop some sort of pattern to help make things easier and more consistent. For me the biggest learning was to work out the button pattern for the top leather and the bottom backing material. Based on what I was finding I decided that the pattern for the front cover and the backing were not the same.

Two are the original front seat back cushion from my ’05 Cadillac. The others are pictures of the back of the rear seat. The original assembly was essentially flat on the back and “puffed” out on the front. Measuring the distance between the prong buttons on the back and then also mentioning the amount of material between the buttons on the front over the tuft showed that the distance between the buttons on the front was more than measured on the back. This suggested that the they may have used two different patterns. One for the backing material and one for the front.

[nsbrassnut]

The backing pattern is laid out flat and reflects the pattern that you want when finished. My original sections appeared to have the leather tight against the backing so I went with a similar approach. The upper leather layer needs to allow for the bulge and fold of the leather. So, for the top I learned to make a slightly “expanded” pattern for spacing between the buttons. I think I ended up expanding by ½” in both vertical and horizontal directions for this project. Each expansion has an effect, but they don’t behave quiet the same. And also, the seats are somewhat cone shaped and what looks like a straight flat line on a finished seat can actually be a curved line on the patterns when you are making the cushions. A difference pattern expansion factor may be needed for your project to get the results that you want.

I found it helps to make the backing and cover patterns on large sheets of craft paper. Then you can punch small holes in the paper where you want the prong buttons to go and then transfer the pattern to the backing cloth with a marker and to the leather with chalk. That makes it easy to then “connect the dots” with the prong buttons when joining the layers. This approach also makes it easier to make both sides the same. Make a pattern for one side then flip it over for marking the other side to make a mirror image from side to side.

I pinned the leather and backing together with the prong buttons before adding any padding. Then added the horsehair manually to the center area of the cushion between the buttons. The padding can be pushed in by a mix of using fingers and some dowels of different lengths. The padding on the top and bottom above and below the last row of buttons was added when the cushion was installed on the body.

Back in the day they may have been able to purchase horse hair in already in a sized layer and pre-compressed that could be rolled out on the backing before the leather is place over it. That would have made it much easier. Mine came in big green garbage bags and trying to produce an even layer by hand didn’t go well. So manually stuffing each pleat with fingers and a dowel is slower, but got there in the end. I laid everything out on a large table covered with a sheet to help make it easier to work on. This way you can also pat down the sandwich to help with the forming of the padding and pleats while also keep the backing flat.

And is amazing how much the horse hair compresses when stuffed in. By the time I was done, the cost of the amount of horse hair that I used was nearly as much as the leather!  But the neat finding I did see happen. If you get the patterns right, the pleats and the folds in the leather (or vinyl) start to form themselves as you add the stuffing. Then all you need to do is make sure that all the folds are in the same direction, such as “down”. Tongue depressors are good to have handy to help with pushing the leather folds in the right directions that you want. For most interiors there is a pattern to the folds which I would describe as “fold down”. The idea being that if you wipe or brush down the upholstery you are brushing “over” the fold and not brushing the dirt into the folds.

A couple pictures of the rear seat back are included below showing a couple steps along the way. The last two are the finished rear seat and a picture of the original upholstery in another ’05 that provided pictures to help me with the process. At time some of the pleats looked odd as the formed, but when compared to the original or pictures of other originals many of the same details showed up in the pictures once the covers were installed.

 

[nsbrassnut]

The upholstery sandwich is then placed on the back of the seat, or onto the seat spring and aligned the way that you want it. Then start in the middle of the front and back of seat or seat back and start stapling or tacking the sandwich in place, while also adding more padding and manually folding the pleats at the top and bottom as you attach the sandwich. Pay extra attention at the corners where you may end up with more material that you expected and then make some “deeper” folds to take up the extra material.

 

For wide seat backs, some may be made in sections. Such as one large sandwich that may be made of two pieces of leather joined in the middle along one of the fold seams (what I did on mine). Others may have used one sandwich in the middle and then two more, one per side where the seat back wraps around the side. Another thing to test out for your project if you don’t have the old material for patterns.

 

I did one front seat back at least 4 times in vinyl with slight changes in the pattern each time until I worked out the patterns that produced the results that I wanted. And the choice of vinyl makes a big difference is how it goes. There are some thin flexible vinyls out there that can be used for practice. Or if you want, the first try could be with cloth for both the backing and the cover as a “proof of concept” test. If you are careful, you can re-use the prong buttons after each trial too. They get expensive to use only once.

 

My Cadillac originally used plain black painted prong buttons. These used to be easily available and fortunately for me I bought enough for my project in advance before they were discontinued by the supplier up here. Most prong buttons now are those designed with caps for covering the tops with matching material to the upholstery. Pre-covered prong buttons with black vinyl are available from some old car parts suppliers which can save some time. You could also just install plain black covers on the prong buttons and then paint them black before installation. Warning, the cost of buttons adds up fast too. I think there was around 200 buttons on my Cadillac and I think they are getting to be over $1 each now.

My one car upholstery project ended up taking one entire winter, but I was pleased with the result and I get to say “I did it” too.

Hopefully my description is not too confusing, but enough to help you with ideas on how to approach your project.

 

Have fun.

[nsbrassnut]

Last comment. I do get to have "bragging rights". None of the pleats are sewn in my Cadillac. The only stitching in the entire interior was the pattern on the door panels. Just like the factory did it.

[RansomEli]

nsbrassnut,

 

Thank you very much for the instructions. Just what I need to try it myself. 

 

Greatly appreciated.

[nsbrassnut]

Hi All

 

Like usual, I remember a few items that I forgot to mention later on.

 

Backing material. I found that painter's drop cloth from Home Depot was a close match to the old material and is readily available an not too expensive.

 

And it really helps to get some good tools to help out. Especially good quality shears for cutting material. I went to a local upholstery supplies shop and got a good set of shears and tack hammer (with one end magnetic). They also had some other useful stuff handy like cardboard strip edging (used to get straight edges in folder over material that is tacked onto a frame), edge wire (like music wire) for making seat spring edges. Hog ring pliers and hog rings. Etc.. Most of this is also available on-line, but it can be useful to see it in person and pick out what you need. At the shop may have some suggestions on how to do the work and use the tools.

 

So go have fun with it.

 

[A Woolf]

On 12/11/2023 at 7:23 PM, nsbrassnut said:

The backing pattern is laid out flat and reflects the pattern that you want when finished. My original sections appeared to have the leather tight against the backing so I went with a similar approach. The upper leather layer needs to allow for the bulge and fold of the leather. So, for the top I learned to make a slightly “expanded” pattern for spacing between the buttons. I think I ended up expanding by ½” in both vertical and horizontal directions for this project. Each expansion has an effect, but they don’t behave quiet the same. And also, the seats are somewhat cone shaped and what looks like a straight flat line on a finished seat can actually be a curved line on the patterns when you are making the cushions. A difference pattern expansion factor may be needed for your project to get the results that you want.

I found it helps to make the backing and cover patterns on large sheets of craft paper. Then you can punch small holes in the paper where you want the prong buttons to go and then transfer the pattern to the backing cloth with a marker and to the leather with chalk. That makes it easy to then “connect the dots” with the prong buttons when joining the layers. This approach also makes it easier to make both sides the same. Make a pattern for one side then flip it over for marking the other side to make a mirror image from side to side.

I pinned the leather and backing together with the prong buttons before adding any padding. Then added the horsehair manually to the center area of the cushion between the buttons. The padding can be pushed in by a mix of using fingers and some dowels of different lengths. The padding on the top and bottom above and below the last row of buttons was added when the cushion was installed on the body.

Back in the day they may have been able to purchase horse hair in already in a sized layer and pre-compressed that could be rolled out on the backing before the leather is place over it. That would have made it much easier. Mine came in big green garbage bags and trying to produce an even layer by hand didn’t go well. So manually stuffing each pleat with fingers and a dowel is slower, but got there in the end. I laid everything out on a large table covered with a sheet to help make it easier to work on. This way you can also pat down the sandwich to help with the forming of the padding and pleats while also keep the backing flat.

And is amazing how much the horse hair compresses when stuffed in. By the time I was done, the cost of the amount of horse hair that I used was nearly as much as the leather!  But the neat finding I did see happen. If you get the patterns right, the pleats and the folds in the leather (or vinyl) start to form themselves as you add the stuffing. Then all you need to do is make sure that all the folds are in the same direction, such as “down”. Tongue depressors are good to have handy to help with pushing the leather folds in the right directions that you want. For most interiors there is a pattern to the folds which I would describe as “fold down”. The idea being that if you wipe or brush down the upholstery you are brushing “over” the fold and not brushing the dirt into the folds.

A couple pictures of the rear seat back are included below showing a couple steps along the way. The last two are the finished rear seat and a picture of the original upholstery in another ’05 that provided pictures to help me with the process. At time some of the pleats looked odd as the formed, but when compared to the original or pictures of other originals many of the same details showed up in the pictures once the covers were installed.

 

 

 

Nice job.  You did a very good job of figuring this out by trial and error.  I generally followed the same steps that you did.  I did find good advice in some old books that gave suggestions on how to figure out the extra material (allowance) that has to be added to the cover (leather in this case) to make it possible to create the folds.  Also I had the old upholstery out of another car (Model T) to study.  That was a big help.   

 

I initially did all of my layout on a computer and then made changes as needed.  The backing material I used is muslin.  The layout shown is for the button patterns.  Note that the leather cover is much bigger than this layout.  the size of the cover is determined by adding extra material for the pleats.   

 

Also a note on sewn pleats.  I had access to a car similar to mine with the original upholstery.  The pleats were sewn.  Strictly speaking it is authentic for my car and it was done both ways in the day.  I did talk to a prominent restorer on the West Coast who does his own upholstery work and he does his tufted upholstery work by folding and buttoning the pleats.  I think the punch line is do whatever works best for your situation. 

 

 

 

[nsbrassnut]

That's a good looking upholstery project.

 

I think some of the difference is the period that the original was built in. I think the very earlier cars used mainly all hand stuff and folded pleats. Then as production ramped up and the factories got busier other methods started to be used more.

Such as sewing the pleats between the buttons, prelaid stuffing and hand folding the top and bottom on installation. Then on to all pre-sewn pleats and stuffing.

 

So if you have an original pattern or a reference to follow try using that method. The challenge can still be working out the pattern. :^)

[BryanC17reo]

A big thank you to all that has shared tips and information in this thread .It's very helpful understanding how to start the learning process !!!!!  is there a general ( rule of thumb)  on how much more distance between the pattern on the leather verses the backing button holes ? I'm sure the spacing horizontal and vertical are different ratios ?

[trimacar]

7 hours ago, BryanC17reo said:

A big thank you to all that has shared tips and information in this thread .It's very helpful understanding how to start the learning process !!!!!  is there a general ( rule of thumb)  on how much more distance between the pattern on the leather verses the backing button holes ? I'm sure the spacing horizontal and vertical are different ratios ?

I once visited an Amish trimmer, C.P., now retired, his son D.P. Now doing the work, many know of whom I speak.

 

He showed me that, for button tufting, he allowed 1 inch horizontally and 1/4 inch vertically, that way one got the fullness, but no pucker nor folds in the middle as is so often seen.  He attached cover to backing material, then stuffed the tufts.

 

If sewing, add a slight seam allowance and sew very close to edge of fold.  Punching a small hole in cover at each intersection BEFORE SEWING is advised, otherwise one ends up with a wad of material at that point.

 

The rule of thumb for diamonds is that the width of the diamond should be more than half, but less than two-thirds, of the height of the diamond.

 

I will say that, while no upholstery work is magic, button tufting will have one scratching their heads in confusion at times, particularly around inside corners such as a front or rear backrest.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by trimacar (see edit history)

[A Woolf]

2 hours ago, nsbrassnut said:

That's a good looking upholstery project.

 

I think some of the difference is the period that the original was built in. I think the very earlier cars used mainly all hand stuff and folded pleats. Then as production ramped up and the factories got busier other methods started to be used more.

Such as sewing the pleats between the buttons, prelaid stuffing and hand folding the top and bottom on installation. Then on to all pre-sewn pleats and stuffing.

 

So if you have an original pattern or a reference to follow try using that method. The challenge can still be working out the pattern. :^)

I agree with your comments. In my case the car I had access to gave me some basic dimensions, but I still had to work out the pattern for my car. 

I assume in the day a trimmer would work out the details on the first car of a series and that work was repeated.  Today just about every trimming job is unique. 

[nsbrassnut]

David's comments are good.

 

If you have access to some original material for patterns you may be able to take some rough measurements to start at. Find a flexible cloth measuring tape like that used for sewing and sometimes upholstery. Its very flexible and you may be able to get a rough measurement of the distance between the buttons on the back and then the one of the front by measuring over the full pleat down to each button. A piece of string will also work with a marker to mark the spots then measure between them afterward.

 

This is why most of us need to do some test samples to figure out what patterns produce the results we are looking for.

 

Each project is different and you will have to find what works best for you.

[BryanC17reo]

Thanks,that was an approach I thought about,the pattern seems to change a little in the area where the back turns to the side in the corner.Again thanks for your input!

[mechanician]

Some nice work on here... Where sewing is used, what are folks using for a machine?

[trimacar]

14 hours ago, mechanician said:

Some nice work on here... Where sewing is used, what are folks using for a machine?

You need a walking foot,industrial, sewing machine.  There are also special needles for leather, triangular point.

 

I use a Pfaff and think it’s a great sewing machine.  Juki is popular, as are others.

[rydersclassics]

Great help and beautiful work on traditional diamond tufting over horsehair.

 

Can anyone offer similar guidance with smooth leather installed in early speedster seats?   

[John Kelso]

We also use a Pfaff, excellent machine

[Bloo]

On 12/19/2023 at 7:46 PM, mechanician said:

Some nice work on here... Where sewing is used, what are folks using for a machine?

I worked in an upholstery shop for a while in the early 80s. The shop was growing extremely rapidly. We moved into bigger space several times. People came and went, sewing machines came and went, some used some new. I have had an opportunity to sew on a lot of different industrial machines. My favorite was the Consew 206RB-1. The first one fell out of a truck during a move, and was replaced with 2 more. It was the only model I ever used that could run at full speed reliably on a high speed (3450RPM) clutch motor. Never buy a high speed motor, by the way. If you must have a clutch motor, get 1750RPM and the smallest pulley you can find. I learned on clutch motors and still use one, but I don't recommend it. Get a servo motor. Those weren't a thing back when I learned. I have an identical Consew 206RB-1 now, though I don't do upholstery professionally anymore, and haven't since those days.

 

No matter what, get a "triple feed" (walking foot).