Thumbs up to Nautique Skins

[DavidF]

Yes, I have done all cushions (bottom, backs, side, you name it) and even repaired the foam as needed. So, for the stern seat bottoms....

The bottom cushions have two seperate pieces of foam...one for the main cushion and one for the leading edge "bolster" Seperating the two pieces is something called a "listing". A listing is basically a vinyl flap sewn to the underside of the skin (bisecting the two foam pieces). The listing is stapled to the bottom "board" following the curvature of the leading edge (front or part that would go under your knees) of the board. If the attachment line is curved, then the lising is cut about half way up in several places along the curve to allow the listing to better follow the curve. Then the foam pieces are wrapped with plastic (plastic allows new skin to slid on foam for easier positioning during installation...not meant to waterproof the foam) and put in place before pulling new skin in place and stapling.

The biggest caution I can give is to NOT over stretch the vinyl. The end result will be a cushion smaller than orginal and thus loose fitting. I made this mistake with my bow cushions. What I learned was to measure how much material was originally between the welt and board bottom on the old skin and dublicating that measurement on the new skin. I measured in many places, but mostly at the corners and mid spans...then just made the welt straight.

A little bit of applied heat helps the vinyl stretch on tight fitting skins.

For the bottom covering, save the old and use it as a pattern to cut the new. The old bottom covering will also tell you where the positioning blocks go so you can more easily find the original screw holes.

The hidem is a pain no matter how you do it...just find the best way and go for it. I used a plastic tool to spread the hidem and slide the stapler along.

Don't throw any of the old skin away until the replacement is completely installed and you are happy with it.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions.

[Sinkoumn]

Awesome! Thanks much David. Just curious if you tried to let the skins soak up in some sun before upholstering them onto the cushion (thinking maybe it will make the vinyl just a little more pliable/stretchy)?

[Chexi]

I am currently re-skinning my entire 99 Air with Nautiqueskins vinyl. I have finished the stern seat bottoms and bow seat bottoms. On my boat, these seat bottoms are made up of the following pieces: seat board, foam (2 pieces on stern seats), vinyl, white cover material on the bottom, and "hidem" seam-like looking strips. Here are my tidbits of advice for doing seat cushion bottoms.

1. Do NOT do the corners the way the factory did, which is to say do not cut any seams in the vinyl skin or the vinyl skin. Just fold everything over. For the ones that have piping, I found that folding it straight back along the side instead of on the 45 angle worked by far the best. You can cut the excess plastic round tube in the piping, but do not cut the vinyl. I did it the factory way on one and regret it. I'll try to post some pics of what I mean.

2. Fill in any holes in your foam with Dacron. It is best to then cover the whole side of the cushion that had the hole with a layer of dacron on top of that. If you do this, make sure you do it on all seats that touch eachother, or you will have different heights on your seats.

3. If your boat is more than a few years old, you probably will want to add a layer of Dacron to the top side of your cushion anyway to get it back to its original size due to compression over time. If not, your seams will not line up with the edge of the cushion and when you stretch the vinyl, you will end up with your seams being halway down the side.

4. Go slow. Check seam alignment often. I will check it for virtually every staple, every other at least.

5. If you don't have one, get a pneumatic stapler and compressor. Stay between 40 - 60 psi.

6. tape a very thin layer of clear painter's tarp around the cushion. It will make putting the new vinyl on much easier.

7. Ask George questions as you go. Ask him to send you his advice sheet.

8. Pulling staples is the worst part of the job (except maybe realizing you just made a mistake that can't be fixed). Get a flathead screwdriver with a very thin and narrow head to pry the staples up.

9. I would recommend the 5% upgrade charge to get teflon thread. There other thread is good and will hold up if properly cared for, but the teflon thread is better and more UV resistant.

10. Take lots of digital pictures as you go. You will need to look back at them to see how something was done, especially if you take it apart on Friday and try to put it back together on Monday.

11. Do 1 seat at a time, completely.

12. Pay very close attention when doing the stern seats. There is a vinyl flap on the skin that goes between the front foam cushion and the back foam cushion on the seat. This flap will be a little shorter than the width of the cushions. You need to get placement on this perfect or the skin will not be perfectly placed and you will get wrinkles on one side of the vinyl and be too tight on the other. I would recommend only lightly tacking this in place with 2-3 staples and then put the entire skin on to check for placement (do not staple the skin of course). If correct, then carefully uncover and add more staples to the flap. If not, you can easily adjust until you get it right.

13. After you do all this work, when people are going in and out the back, take out the middle seat like it is designed to do and have people walk not on the cushions but on the correct surface. I suspect that a combination of sun exposure, improper cleaning products, and the force of people stepping on the cushions is why so many of us have ripped seams on our stearn bench seats.

[Chexi]

Oh, and yes, letting your vinyl sit in the sun is a good idea for all the skins. It not only helps with making it more pliable, but it helps reduce the wrinkles. A hair dryer works in a pinch, but the sun works much much better. Do not use a heat gun.

The hidem is a bit of a pain for me, as my stapler has a safey switch on the nose that must be pressed by pushing the stapler down to the stapling surface, but if yours does not have this safety feature, I would think it would not be too bad. You only need about 1 stapler per inch or inch and a half on the hidem.

That said, do not apply the hidem until you are absolutely positive that you are satisfied with the job you did on the main vinyl. The hidem generally (although not always) goes on pretty near the edge of the seat bottom. Once you put staples in there, you have have staple holes near the edge of the cushion. You do not want to have to take hidem off and reposition your vinyl. I put hidem on my first cushion (middle stern) before I learned about the Dacron technique, and now have a middle cushion that is too short and that I cannot easily fix. I will likely be buying a new skin for that one.

[DavidF]

Yes, leaving the skins in the sun is a recommended technique if a: have the time and b: it is not cold outside. Both of which did not work for me.

I fixed the foam with foam. No need for Dacron, but if it works then it works. Heck, I don't even know what dacron is.

I used a heat gun with care it worked out well for me. Just need to avoid overheating.

I agree, pulling staples totally sucks.

Some pieces required an extra pair of hands for me. Your mileage may vary.

I can't say this enough, do NOT pull the vinyl too tight or your cushions will be smaller in the end.

[Chexi]

Fixing foam with foam might work better than dacron. dacron is not a perfect solution, and while it looks perfect from the outside, I can still kind of feel the imperfection a little bit. It's just hard/expensive to get mold resistant foam and dacron is cheap. If anyone needs any, I bought a 50 foot roll and will send you some for my shipping cost. I have way way more than I need.

[DavidF]

George sent me foam scrap free of charge to repair the mouse eaten and worn away places. So, I bet you are correct about finding good quality foam locally. So, just ask George for some scrap when ordering a skin or skins. 3/4" foam was what I used the most. I just carved the new foam to fit the worn place and glued it in with contact cement or spray glue (heat resistant)...depending on the size/area.

[Sinkoumn]

This thread should be filed or stickied in a how-to forum for sure!

On my rear corner seat, all that is wrong is that i have some decent splitting/cracking going on between the two foam pads on the vinyl (from me/everyone getting in the boat from the dock while the boat is on the lift) with no foam damage - does that make the job that much easier? I just have a very hard time paying an upholstery shop to do this for me when I am 99.94% sure that I can do it without a problem and save some coin.

[DavidF]

Yes, do it. Just get the old skin off in one piece and use it as a guide in installing the new. Just use a few staples (away from the edge) until you are statisfied with the position of the new skin, then staple away. Nautique Skins will send you everything you need (except staples and stapler of course). Your foam will be fine.

[Chexi]

The stern seat bottom cushions are probably the easiest part to reupholster on your boat. The only caveat is whether your existing vinyl has faded enough to make the new cushion stand out. You may end up re-doing all 3 for that reason. George at Nautiqueskins will send you a swatch so you can check.

As for my project, I just started the driver seat today. Big time PITA. I did the bottom cushion today and just could not get the the part between the 2 cushions nice and tight. It looks fine and is good enough, but I really wish I could have gotten it tighter. Oh well, maybe with it not being super tight there, the seams won't rip like they did on the original.

[Chexi]

Just test placed my bow cushions (have not tacked on the hidem yet, so some re-doing is still possible). As I suspected, the nose cushion's seam is not quite straight. It travels from right to left as you go toward the tip of the bow. It's pretty slight, but noticeable to me. I noticed this when putting the cushion together, but could not get it to fit any other way. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the top of the old cushion, just the bottom, although I seem to recall it looking kind of the same to me before (i.e., a little off center). Anyone else have any pictures of their bow for a sport or air late 90's or early 2000's? Or, could you let me know if your center seam appears to line up perfectly with the lift ring on the bow or not?

Note, the back rest is still the old vinyl. I have not gotten to that yet.

[Sinkoumn]

Do they really need your hull ID number?

[Chexi]

I assume that they use the hull ID number to confirm that the year and model you think it is, is what it actually is. I also suspect that they have their patterns listed by model numbers.

[DavidF]

Here are a couple of shots I took yesterday of my new skins. Sorry about the bad lighting, it was a bright morning with many shadows from the trees.

[Chexi]

Looks awesome David. I think your center seam on the bow cushion is a little straighter than mine, but it's hard to tell from that angle. I think I'm going to live with mine as is. It is really close to perfect, and with the bow being asymetrical anyway on these boats, I'm not sure it would ever look perfect.