Do it yourself boat cushions

[Morgan3820]

Has anyone ever done their own interior boat cushions? How hard was it? Did it save any money? I have not done a lot of sewing but I have a sewing machine that will work.

[sailingdog]

Yes, and it's not all that hard... whether it saves money or not is really depending on how you view what your time is worth.

[Faster]

My wife is an accomplished seamstress and enjoys sewing a lot of things.. We have had several boats re-upholstered over the years, and that's one thing that she has never been interested in doing.

The fitting is finicky, and looks really bad if you don't get it right. The pieces get quite large, and the material is often quite heavy requiring a heavier-than-average sewing machine. In some cases the material itself is quite expensive, and the spectre of an error becomes quite costly.. and her final point is the availability/installation of all those zippers.

We are fortunate in having found someone (a pro) who does the job for us at really reasonable rates, and so have gone that route. But she readily admits that DIY is possible... just not for her.

[sailingdog]

Zippers... who needs zippers... this is the age of velcro...

[Freesail99]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Zippers... who needs zippers... this is the age of velcro...

I can see an extra heavy rear end shooting the inside foam cushion across the cabin like a missile with velcro, lol

[I33]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Zippers... who needs zippers... this is the age of velcro...

You're right SD--kinda makes you wonder why we are not seeing velcro used more by the pro upholstery shops. Do they make higher margin on the zippers?

[sailingdog]

The new velcro is more than strong enough to resist even Cam's rear end hitting the cushion.

Originally Posted by Freesail99

I can see an extra heavy rear end shooting a the inside foam cushion across the cabin like a missile with velcro, lol

[Gryzio]

When I was young I learned to sew from my mother. I the type person who enjoys learning to do things for myself.

I also have a friend who do this for a living. Sewing is not hard and neither is making some cushions. If, you have the old ones, many times you can use those for a pattern. Mainly you want to add some extra to the measurements for seams to sew.

Another option people may have. Where I live the "County Extension Office" (the ones we think deal only with farms) offer a course in Sewing. It not expensive and for a project for the course you can make your cushions and have the help of an instructor and industrial sewing machine.

I have another friend who's wife took this course and started a small upholstery business out of their garage.

[Sabreman]

I've done it and it's not that hard at all. Just use the old fabric as a pattern and you're good to go. Remember that all fabric stretches, so making them a hair smaller 1/4" on a side is a safe bet. Zippers aren't hard either. Just look at how the originals were done and mimic it. If your foam is shot, make the covers first then replave the foam. You can either size it up or down to fix any mess ups. This is backward from how a pro would do it, but if you're an amateur like me, it works better this way.

Good luck. For those of you who've read my posts you can probably tell by now that my effort to save a buck offsets my fear of messing up. Learned a lot, made a few mistakes, but learned my boats REALLY well.

[j34035]

Also, when you go to re-insert the foam in a cushion cover, wrap it with a thin polyethlyene drop cloth. This will let the cloth slide on the foam. Get everything positioned pretty close, then work the plastic out. Makes getting the cloth fitting smoothly much easier. (Wife's idea, not mine. It works!!)
DD