1954 Chevy Pickup | Upholstery Shop: Seats

December 22nd, 2008: Seats | Side Control Modules

I wasn't sure what the proper name was for these plastic parts that cover the seat-back control ... so I'm calling them "side control modules." At any rate, I've decided to cover them with black elk hide ... this is the easiest kind of project to do with leather because all I have to do is glue the elk to the plastic and elk stretches easily, so it's a simple matter to get it to follow contours and shapes.

Below, you can see the control module and seat-back handle as it was on the original seat. After removing the plastic piece, the first thing was to remove the seat-belt guide (that plastic slotted-looking piece seen in the picture below, to the rear of the seat-back handle) ... this left three holes that needed to be dealt with. I didn't want them showing through the elk, so I put some duct tape behind them and filled them with some clear silicone caulk.

Just a dab of caulk into each hole, scraped flat with a putty knife and left to dry is all that's needed.

Next, before covering the piece with elk, I needed to deal with two recessed ports, where mounting screws go. When I cover the piece with elk, I'll just be cutting slits in the leather and tucking them into the ports ... if I didn't put some elk inside the ports, you would see gray plastic showing and we can't have that. So I shaved some small pieces of elk, making them as thin as possible, and glued them inside the ports.

Then I cut pieces of elk to basic shapes and glued the hide to the surface of the modules.

Once the hides were wrapped and glued to the fronts and sides of the modules, I trimmed off the excess elk and cut slotted tabs around all corners ... then I sprayed fresh glue on the elk and the plastic, waited a couple of minutes and finished wrapping and attaching the elk.

PS: I used Performance High-Temp Trim Adhesive - Click Here

[New Radio Faceplate | Click Here]

Has Alan's Site Been Helpful to You? Put Some Cash In Alan's Tip Jar!
Enter the Amount You Want to Donate & Click the Button Below:

Or, If You Prefer, You Can Donate Using PayPal: