Upholstery Tools

[Tinkerman]

Evening All:
I'm tired of fighting engine parts and getting frustrated over having the wrong parts and whatever. I have decided to take a break from all of that and re-upholster my seats. I have the seat kits and the padding but I do need a good source of supply for hog ring pliers and hog rings. Any thoughts that you have on that problem would be greatly appreciated.
I also saw some broken springs in the seats and I seem to remember a thread about how to fix them. Again any help will be deeply appreciated.

Cheers Tinkerman

 

[DougF]

I know TRF carries the rings. I seem to remember seeing pliers in old Harbor Freight catalogs.

 

[martx-5]

I redid the seats on my TR3, and there were no hog rings. There are small clips that slip over the covering and around the thin bars that are underneath the seat springs. The back sections get stapled (or tacked as original) onto the wooden strips at the lower back of the seat pans. On the seat that doesn't fold, ISTR that there is another strip of tack wood on the bottom at the rear. I'd have to go upstairs and dig them out to be sure.

Take the seats apart carefully, and note what padding goes where, and how it is folded over the seats etc. It's a pretty straight forward job, but you need to take your time. The gluing of the leather or vinyl on the seat pan needs alot of patience, so don't rush anything. The horse hair type stuff (I doubt it's actually horse hair) that goes over the the front of the seat backs and folds around the back has to be glued on really well, or you will have problems pulling on the covers. I didn't glue on the cotton batting onto the horse hair and it didn't seem to shift any.

 

[Tinkerman]

Thanks Art. The reason I'm asking about the hog rings is that the seat bottom fabrick is held on with hog rings. 20 or so per seat. Havev'nt looked at the backs yet. I might add that I am doing seats for a 60K+ 3A. It may be that the small clips that you are refering to are what I am calling hog rings.

Tinkerman

 

[guzzul]

If you're going to do hog rings, get a good set of hog ring pliers. JC Whitney sells some cheapo's (as well as some good ones as I recall). The cheap pliers are a pain to use (voice of experience), unless you're keen to enhance your four-letter vocabulary.

Eastwood sells decent pliers. Tool King also, and they seem to have pretty good prices as per link below. Not sure what shipping will cost you on top of this, but these seem like a reasonable price.

https://www.toolking.com/k-dtools_kd3704.aspx

I prefer the bent-nose pliers rather than straight ones. For tight corners it allows you to hold your hand at an angle versus having to go straight-on.

 

[fogdot]

I got my hog ring pliers on good ol' E-Bay.

 

[martx-5]

... It may be that the small clips that you are refering to are what I am calling hog rings.

Tinkerman

Yes, those small clips are used where regular hog rings would be used. I had no trouble prying those off with a small screwdriver, and a larger screwdriver to push them back on. They have small barbs on them that grip the leather, so getting them off requires a bit more finesse then pushing them back on.

Of course, if someone redid the seats once before, there may actually be hog rings on there. Post a pic of what you have if you are unsure, but if you have the original clips, no special tools are neccessary, and the clips can be re-used.

 

[mapleaf]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in, but I too am about to tackle rebuilding the seats on my TR3 and was wondering if anyone on the list knows of a supplier of the original clips that Martx-5 describes, and a source for the right size individual springs to replace the broken ones. Thanks

 

[Tinkerman]

I just ordered a set of hog ring plieers from a listing on ebay, angle type $36.90. Friend of mine that used to be in the body shop business told me not to mess with cheap hog ring pliers. I have been told that I can get various size hog rings at the local farmers co-op.
I am going to order the springs off the internet. Town I live in is kinda small and springs are not available. I'm hunting some comments I saw in a thread awhile back by Don Elliot he re-built his and bought some new springs so I hope to get the size from him.
Tinkerman