Jay,

Because I have done upholstery work before, I had a desire to do most of
the work. The part I did not want to do was the actual cutting and
sewing of the materials. I also did not want to scrounge up the foam and
webbing, along with cutting and fitting the panels. That part is WAY too
tedious unless you are in a production shop with all the materials and
tools. My partner (the wife) absolutely hates the feel of leather
interiors. Since this limited me to more "common" fabrics and I wanted
to do the install work, Airtex began looking like a better deal. The
hesitation I had earlier about fit and finish appears to have more to do
with the chintzy way Piper designed the seats rather than who makes the
coverings. Yes, I know that a custom upholstery shop can dramatically
alter the seat thickness and contour with custom built up padding, but I
want to keep the plane nearer to a "stock" look, just cleaned up. After
all, a custom leather interior can look a little out of place in a run
of the mill airplane like a 140. As I said earlier, I also hate to wait.
I want to have everything lined up with no question about where I will
source something or not be quite sure about how to perform some
operation or another. Again, the Airtex solution can almost literally
"arrive in a box".

Tried to place the order on Friday, but they were closed.

Mike

Jay Honeck wrote:

Good luck, Mike.
One thing I discovered while re-doing ours was that it's possible to
get a good job for a reasonable price -- IF you are a patient man and
shop around.
It is also, of course, possible to pay a lot and still be
disappointed, and it's also possible to pay a lot and still have the
job take forever. However, generally speaking, if you want the job
done on a specific timeline, be prepared to pay more.
Our leather interior cost far less than most, because (a) I was
willing to wait while the owner of the shop accumulated enough leather
from bigger jobs (King Airs, etc.), and (b) I was patient. The job
took nearly a year, in bits and pieces, and caused me a great deal of
heartburn, but in the end we walked away with a beautiful complete
leather interior for less than what a single leather seat usually
costs at an automotive upholstery shop.



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