Dennis, Mike Bell has a full-blown auto upholstery shop just a few miles away from where I live. This is a wonderful tutorial in upholstery, I have down loaded the whole thing and printed out a copy for future reference. However without the one major tool, that being an industrial sewing machine, it’s kind of impractical to try and do what he demonstrates in the article. If I had access to the proper sewing machine when I installed my “JC Spanish Grain” seat covers I would have certainly ripped a few seams and re-sown them to make them fit correctly.
Yes the new cotton batting is a must and the padding kit I got had about twice as much cotton than is really needed if your replacing the original. Luckily the frame and woven excelsior underlayment on mine was in excellent shape and I could re-use it so all I had to do was replace the cotton and cover. It’s documented in the pictures I think.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny G
Sandwich, IL