I've also started recovering the race seat. I bought it used about two years ago and it wasn't in the best shape then and it's gone downhill since. We already had the leather, and another local upholstery shop had an insert material that'll compliment the stock interior colors.
Stripped down.
New materials.
Headrest panel marked to have the logo embroidered.
The sides of the seat were pretty lumpy so I glued 1/4" dense foam and block sanded it flat for a good base for the leather to glue to.
The edges were uneven.
Filled the low spots in with foam and used a 2" grinder to level the excess.
Insert design laid out.
So dad has done upholstery for 40+ years; that's all he did when he first opened up the shop but I've never taken the time to learn how to sew. These are my first practice pieces.
The test piece with 1/2 sew foam to make raised panels for the inserts didn't look exactly like I wanted it to, and the stretch of the material made it difficult to keep the edges perfectly square. So I had the idea to cut the shape from 1/4" foam and glue that over the insert padding to create the raised pattern.
With the insert design and raised foam idea working, I needed to make a metal backer for the upper 1/4" foam pieces to glue to since I wanted the upper part of the back rest to fit more flush with the backrest than the 1" foam I was using for the lower part. To blend from a flat background to the 1" foam I glued the 1" foam to the bottom of the metal panel and used a 2" grinder to gradually fade from 1" down to nothing. It still need a bit more shaping but the idea will work.
Small test piece.
Full backrest foam and upper panel.
