my 36 has orginial upholstery know the materal from hamption coach going to be very costly wondering how munch you save versus haveing it done or doing it yourself know from past i made thimgs worse and it end up costing me more haveing my mistakes redone like to try it my self but don t to destory materal and have to buy it again is materal precut and you get ever thing you need it a 5 window standard coupe any rough estimate on haveing it done and cost of materal will call hampton coach when cool wheatwer comes and i get around to doing something in octomber thanks

You are hereby declared the winner of the longest sentence for today. Plese step forward to accept your award.

You did what?

Not to pile on, but capitalization, punctuation and spell check are not overrated.

Translation.

My 36 has original upholstery. I know the material from Hampton Coach is going to be very costly, but I was wondering how much might be saved versus having it done or doing it yourself. I know from the past when I made things worse and it ended up costing me more by having my mistakes corrected by someone else. I would like to try it myself, but I don’t want to destroy the material and have to buy it again. Is the material precut; do you get everything you need to do a 5 window standard coupe?

Can anyone give a rough estimate on having it done and the cost of material? I will call Hampton Coach when cool weather comes and I get around to doing something in October.

Thanks
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Please accept this in the friendly manner in which it is offered.

OK, have you tried one of the retail upholstery shops near your home? I have seen guys do a wonderful job themselves of installing a Hampton Coach interior kit. I would not be that brave with a hand full of expensive mohair that cost 2 or 3 thousand dollars. I may also consider using material from the home town shop. I have seen some shops that do a very good job when they get a chance. I wrote to Hampton Coach 15 or 16 years ago bout an interior kit for my 1951 Belair and they sent me samples of the material and a cost for a complete kit. I about dropped my teeth when I saw the price.

As you can probably guess that price would be a bargain today.I priced a kit for my 51 belair last year and its more than the car was when new,however not many things go down in price.The more you can do yourself the more you can save.The trick is to balance out the time,the talent and the $$$$ but not everyone will follow the same path.I would check out some local shops,let them know what quality you expect and then compare the price of the Hampton kit.

excuse me for not being as skilled in writeing as most of you. i am sure i can not work on them munch better then i write. one thing i say my love for old chevys and trying to keep them like they where is second to no one i do not need a award for that SMITTY

Hey Ray, plese or please?

Smitty,

I checked with Hampton Coach and I think I got a price of around $2,500 for the material only for my '31 5 window coupe. Then a local upholster wanted another $2,500 to install it. Found another guy who came close to matching the color and he charged me $2,600 for the upholstery and installation. Saved around $2,500 and I'm real happy as mine is a driver and not a show car.

Hi smitty,

Sorry if I offended you. My comments were done in jest.

I admire your stated mission of keeping your car as close to original as possible. I wish you good luck in your efforts.

Hey Smitty,

I bought the kit from Hampton Coach for my 32 Coupe and installed it myself. Jerry's numbers are right on.

The kits comes with everything you need, except the patients need to complete it. The directions are pretty good except when it comes to the seats. It took a while for me to realize that the instructions are for all models of that year, in your case, Master Deluxe vs. Master or Standard, and the material offered by Chevy for the year.

It took me about three to four weekend to complete my Coupe. I took my time and must have read the directions fourty times before I was done.

Keep in mind that the kit comes with all panels and material cut, and there is not much room for mistakes. You will have to do a little trimming here and there, or a little extra tucking so the material does not bunch up.

It scared me at first, but after seeing the results and haveing the satisfaction of doing myself, I was well satisfied.

Good luck, let us know how you made out.

I purchased a Hampton Coach kit for my 2dr Master about three years ago and it cost $3,000.00, including shipping. I started the reupholstery process about 2 years ago doing the back of the rear seat first as it appeared to be the easiest to do. The first thing I discovered was that the burlap in the kit was 10 inches narrower than the original material. I called Hampton Coach and they said that is what they use and that they have never had any other complaints about it. I wanted to completely surround the springs as the original burlap did so I went to my neighborhood JoAnn's Fabric Store and bought enough burlap to do all the seats. As luck would have it, my wife had a 40% off coupon and there was a sale on so I got it all for about $8.00. My wife stitched the padding to the burlap as the original was, and that is as far as I ever got as many other projects have taken priority. When I first got the kit, I noticed there were no instructions on how to fasten the hard backs to the backs of the bucket seats. I called Hampton Coach about that and they sent me a curved needle and some hand-drawn pictures of how the stitches should look. They did not send any thread or anything to sew with. I have heard their material is cut to the minimum needed but since I haven't tried to put any of that on yet, I cannot confirm this. However, I suspect it is true due to the number of times I have heard it. Most of my other major projects are now finished so I intend to get at the reupholstering soon. In retrospect, if I had it to do over, I would definitely take a car to a local upholsterer and let them do it. I would probably have the car on the road now if I had done that in the first place! Beamer

had no idea price was that high. my wife says she can do it if i take out the seats .have no choice seats got ripped might just go with any materal as close to color as possable.will just put new materal over old seats as the stuffing is fine. thinks any place to get materal besides hampton coach . ray no harm done i have bad days . your help and otheres like you is what makes this club and this site what it is very good thinks

Thanks for the complement!

That thread and curved needle should have been included in Beamer's kit. My kit came with it.

Hampton's kit's are OK for someone that does not have the time or resource to gather everything needed.

It's true about the burlap. HC wants you to wrap only the tops and sides of the seats and seatbacks. I also added extra burlap I had laying around the garage. Same with the thick sheet padding.

Ray

I never did get any thread. Just happy to get the needle! I took a piece of the original thread to my friendly Jo Ann's Fabric store and found something that seems to be identical to the original. Not sure about the material it is made from but it is the same size and has the same twist, etc., so I am going to use that - someday!!! There was what appeared to be some extra padding along the top of the rear seat back -several strips of it with each strip being a little shorter than the one under it. I don't know if that was to give the seat a curved appearance along the top or what. I can not tell from the pictures I took whether there was a little rise and there is nothing mentioned about that in the HC replacement kit. I have some padding I might use to try and duplicate the original but not sure yet. Beamer

Hey Beamer,

The padding was indeed an issue with my installation. I could not figure out from the instructions if I was using the right amount of padding.

Through trial and era I found out that just when you think you have enough padding add some more! That's because when you pull the material towards the edges the HC padding, foam whatever, tends to flatten out and the fabric looks loose once pulled to where it is fastened.

Lesson learned; you can never have enough padding!

Hey RGwiz, I would like to know more about the additional padding you used. Do you remember about how thick it was? What was the material? Did you use it all over such as on the seat backs and bottoms? Did you cut it the same size as the HC stuff and just overlay that? I was afraid the HC stuff was not thick enough or would compress too much. I would like my seats to look "full" or "plush" or whatever the term is. Don't mind buying more padding, just need to know a little more about what to buy. Thanks loads for your input. By the way, where in NJ is Wayne? My son lives in Marlton which is about 30 minutes due east of Philadelphia. Beamer

on the several that i have installed if you add very much there will not be enough material to tack .

Pushrod, you are somewhat right. Beamer, to clear things up a little, what I meant to say is HC also does not instruct you were to exactly place the included cut pieces of fluffy padding. They show it on the seating surfaces and overlapping down around the sides. I kind of had to judge the placement for myself. I didn't think it would be "plush" enough so I found and old bed quilt (about 1/2" thick) and put that down first over the burlap. It helped but as pushrod says it seemed at first a little too plush and I thought I'd have trouble pulling the material down to tack. I also thought the material would rip! I took my time and placed tacks about every 1/4" to 3/8" in the tight areas while using my arm and body weight to push the material down. The bugger was the top of the seatback. I sure wish I had another person to help with that. I must have spent an hour or so on each end. And I didn't use the quilt on that area. HC should give you a little more overlap at the top and corners of the seat back.
Ray
Beamer, I'm in northern Jersey about 35 miles due West of New York City. Your son is about 60 miles South of me.

Thanks for the comments guys. Pretty soon I will have enough info to start the job!! One thing that is bothering me a little and that is aligning the ridges on the back of the seat whith those on the seat cushion so when I put them in the car, they are still aligned properly. Anyone have any short cuts or tips on this? I imagine there will be a little trial and error at first but I thought maybe someone who has done this before developed a good way to do it. Thanks again. Beamer

Put the springs and supports in place. Then center as they will sit after upholstered. If you mark the back of the wood support and then align the fabric to those marks it will fit correctly. We always make a test fit with the fabric only tacked on the second cushion before finishing the installation.

Beamer,

I think I did the seat bottom first. When you lay the material on the covered seat springs you should overlap both sides about equal. (sounded good to me, right?) To start, I used white chaulk to lenthwise mark the center of the seat wood frame front and back, and then the center of the front and back of the material. So there is no guessing to find the center of both. I layed the material with padding on the seat and tacked the sides only at the front, center, and back. I made sure to leave enough material to later cover the front and back portions. Now you should know were the ridges will be. I finished by tacking alternately from side to side and then the front, again alternately right and left. You should be able to make slight adjustments to the ridges as you tack.

I also used the white chaulk to mark the back of the seat spring were the buttons tie to it. This way I was able to reattach the button in about the exact place on the spring. That's if your seat and back has buttons and some of the originals are still there.

After the seat was done I repeated the process with the backrest, checking it by placing the seat on the backrest full wooden frame and making sure the ridges matched. I don't now if your seat assembly is one piece like mine. My car is a Sport Coupe with only one seat.

Ray

Thanks guys for all the tips. They will undoubtedly be a big help. My upholstery is all original, but dry rotted, and I took a lot of notes and pictures as I was dismantelling the seat. However there are a lot of tricks to make reassembly easier and that is what you have given me. I certainly appreciate it and will probably be calling on you for more as I progress through this exercise. With regard to buttons, my HC kit has several more than there were in the car originally. This was a puzzle for a while as I thought the rear seat cushion back, which does not have any, may have left the factory without them. After a posting in this forum some time back, I was told that cushion never had any on a Master. I guess the extras are for a Master Deluxe. Another mystery solved by VCCA folks! Thanks again everyone. Beamer