1954 Chevy Pickup | Upholstery Shop: Leather Shifter Knob

March 10th, 2007 : Leather Shifter Knob

I was going to make some leather boots today for my shifter, hand and foot brakes ... but I brought my shifter knob in the house and wound up spending all day (7 hours) trying to make a leather cover for it! LOL! What a trip!

My first few attempts were just sloppy ... and when I started getting the hang of it and figuring out what needed to be done, I ran into another problem: The moose leather and the elk leather lost all signs of their beautiful grain when pulled so tight; in order to make the cover, it has to be extremely tight. So I tried some vinyl I have that kind of matches the elk and that solved the problem of looks but created another problem: The vinyl couldn't hold up to the stress of the tying technique applied to the underside; the thread would cut right through it when I pulled it tight -- not so with the elk or the moose.

Finally, on my seventh attempt, I had total success. I used vinyl on the topside and moose on the underside.

Shifter Knob Cover in 2 Parts

You can see by the picture above, I cut slits in the bottom piece and punched holes for the hand-stitching, seen below.

Before sewing the two pieces together, I stitched a music note in the topside -- I practiced making these for days and after making about 3 dozen of them, I had the process down. This one is probably the best one yet!

Next, I sewed the two pieces together (face to face), turned them right-side-out and stuffed the knob in. Once the knob was in place, I stitched up the bottom and the knob is covered as tight as a drum.

Finishing the Knob Cover

March 25th, 2007:

I decided that if I made the cover a bit larger and glued the face onto the knob first, it wouldn't stretch the leather and I'd be able to enjoy an elk leather cover instead of the vinyl one above ... and it worked! So, here's iteration number eight:

Elk Leather Shifter Knob Cover

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