I arranged the sewing machine and tables for a good sized work area.

Here is the stern backrest being sewing together.  It has the CY logo, diamond quilting, top-stitching and french seams. . . a little bit of everything. 

I planned to have the CY logo in 4 places and sent the material out to an embroidery shop to have them done.

The sewing machine being a Consew 206RB-4, is quite well suited for upholstery work.  It is a walking foot machine with compound feed.  The stitch length is selectable between 2 - 10mm, and it has reverse.  I swapped out the standard (clutch) motor to a servo motor for better slow speed control and also did a 6:1 gear (pulley) reduction on the machine.  I can slow it down to about 1 stitch for every 3 seconds, allowing me to make single stitches at a time.  This capability is quite helpful for tight areas.

The re-making of the vinyl ‘skins’ was done by taking the old skin apart and tracing all of the individual ‘panels’ of the skin on new vinyl.  Then sewing all of the new panels together.

Since the seats/vinyl were only 6 years old, the old vinyl was in decent enough condition to make the new panels from.  On much older seats, the vinyl tends to have shrunk and distorted to the extent of needing to be ‘re-patterned’ from the foam cushion itself.

On to page 3 of the upholstery project

I removed all of the seats and trim from the boat and began the process of taking the vinyl apart.  In total there were about 40 individual pieces to be re-upholstered.  This count included sidewall and helm trim pieces, which also were showing signs of wear.

The helm seats (2 of them) were quite elaborate, being made of 6 individual pieces.  Above (left) is pictured the main pieces of the helm seats.  Lots of tricky disassembly /  re-assembly work.  I contacted Cruisers Yacht Customer Support group for guidance on taking the helm seats apart.