EchoDelta
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Our 1979 Arrow IV still has the original seat upholstery, and its getting kind of shabby. My co-owners and I are looking at alternatives for reupholstering them, and I am hoping some on this forum might share their experiences.
First of all, we are not trying to make our airplane into a showpiece, but we want it to look nice. We are not looking for leather, but rather high quality cloth material of the sort used in modern cars (i.e. rugged and stain-resistant). We are also not looking to redo the entire interior. We installed new carpeting from Airtex a few years ago and it still looks good. The headliner and overhead plastics are also fine. (We replaced the overhead console about 5 years ago.) The sidewalls are original but in pretty good shape. To color coordinate, the seats will have to be somewhere between a light and medium brown, which is a pretty common seat color. Cost is definitely a major (perhaps overriding) consideration, but we are willing to pay a bit more to get the job done right with new seat foam and good workmanship.
A far as I can tell, we have four basic options, as follows:
1) Go to an aircraft interior specialist. There are a couple of nearby shops that would be happy to do the job, and their work seems to be outstanding, but at a remarkably high price (several thousand dollars).
2) Take the seats to an automotive upholstery shop. There is a nearby shop that did excellent work for me on a car seat with ripped upholstery, so I have confidence in their quality. They would charge a fraction of what either of the aircraft interior shops want, but I am concerned about whether they are sufficiently knowledgeable about FAA requirements for seat materials to be able to order and certify the right stuff.
3) Get a do-it-yourself kit (supposedly custom fitted to our specific PA-28 model) from Airtex. The kit is advertised as including new seat foam and all fasteners, etc. needed to do the job. Our previous experience with Airtex, a do-it-yourself carpet replacement, was very good. The carpet was of good quality and fit almost perfectly. That job went well, but I imagine that doing the seats, even if the fit of the pre-sewn materials is perfect, would be a whole lot harder. None of us owners are particularly adept at this sort of work, and Im worried that the end result will be disappointing. Also, while I am confident that Airtex will deliver materials fully certified to meet FAA regulations, I am not so sure that they will be particularly pleasing aesthetically. Their website seems to suggest that their cloth kits are actually a combination of cloth and vinyl, like some 1960s Chevrolet. We really dont want vinyl.
4) Assuming that we satisfy ourselves that their cloth seat kits are of sufficient quality, get one from Airtex and have it installed by the automotive shop. That way we for sure get FAA regulation-compliant materials installed by people who know what they are doing. The result should be quite satisfactory at about half (or less) what one of the aircraft upholstery shops would charge.
[FONT="]Anyone have experience with options 2, 3, or 4? Tell me about it.[/FONT]
First of all, we are not trying to make our airplane into a showpiece, but we want it to look nice. We are not looking for leather, but rather high quality cloth material of the sort used in modern cars (i.e. rugged and stain-resistant). We are also not looking to redo the entire interior. We installed new carpeting from Airtex a few years ago and it still looks good. The headliner and overhead plastics are also fine. (We replaced the overhead console about 5 years ago.) The sidewalls are original but in pretty good shape. To color coordinate, the seats will have to be somewhere between a light and medium brown, which is a pretty common seat color. Cost is definitely a major (perhaps overriding) consideration, but we are willing to pay a bit more to get the job done right with new seat foam and good workmanship.
A far as I can tell, we have four basic options, as follows:
1) Go to an aircraft interior specialist. There are a couple of nearby shops that would be happy to do the job, and their work seems to be outstanding, but at a remarkably high price (several thousand dollars).
2) Take the seats to an automotive upholstery shop. There is a nearby shop that did excellent work for me on a car seat with ripped upholstery, so I have confidence in their quality. They would charge a fraction of what either of the aircraft interior shops want, but I am concerned about whether they are sufficiently knowledgeable about FAA requirements for seat materials to be able to order and certify the right stuff.
3) Get a do-it-yourself kit (supposedly custom fitted to our specific PA-28 model) from Airtex. The kit is advertised as including new seat foam and all fasteners, etc. needed to do the job. Our previous experience with Airtex, a do-it-yourself carpet replacement, was very good. The carpet was of good quality and fit almost perfectly. That job went well, but I imagine that doing the seats, even if the fit of the pre-sewn materials is perfect, would be a whole lot harder. None of us owners are particularly adept at this sort of work, and Im worried that the end result will be disappointing. Also, while I am confident that Airtex will deliver materials fully certified to meet FAA regulations, I am not so sure that they will be particularly pleasing aesthetically. Their website seems to suggest that their cloth kits are actually a combination of cloth and vinyl, like some 1960s Chevrolet. We really dont want vinyl.
4) Assuming that we satisfy ourselves that their cloth seat kits are of sufficient quality, get one from Airtex and have it installed by the automotive shop. That way we for sure get FAA regulation-compliant materials installed by people who know what they are doing. The result should be quite satisfactory at about half (or less) what one of the aircraft upholstery shops would charge.
[FONT="]Anyone have experience with options 2, 3, or 4? Tell me about it.[/FONT]
