MTFCA Forum

The recent seat upholstery needs some tweaking on the seat back assembly of my 1923 runabout. There was a problem when the local upholsterer took over when the cold weather set in and I felt I couldn’t do it in my cold garage. The result was that certain things were not lining up the way they should and also the orientation of the buttons on the interior sides was not right. The good news is that they screwed up by tacking the top of the upholstery material first. This resulted in all the extra material on the bottom which they didn’t trim. Usually the bottom would be tacked and the material pulled up to the top and the excess trimmed away. So, I can take it off, re attach it from the bottom and work from the bottom upwards to make things right.

I would really like to get some pictures of original seats both with the cushion on .. and the cushion off. Not looking for new upholstery shots, just new shots of original survivor upholstery. Or .. vintage shots showing upholstery. The seats are the mid 1920s type with vertical pleats. The arm rest has the small stamped steel end piece.

If anyone can provide new pictures of an original installation could you please contact me directly through my email at mosterman@eastman.org because I would like to ask for specific shots and details. I really appreciate any help. The work won’t happen until warmer weather, but I plan to write and illustrate the procedure of doing this installation. It will help others in the future.

Mark

These may help, pulled these copies from earlier forum posts. Are '24 but '23 would be most similar. At least shows horizontal line of the back rest upholstery buttons and outer top corner on original material.

Mark: I admire your determination! I wish more members would be like that. The one that really upsets me is the placement of the rear windows in 1917-1925 touring cars and roadsters. I took an adult school class in automobile upholstery, and learned a lot. If I was younger, I probably would have gone into the upholstery business full time, but at this point it's just a hobby. What baffles me is I don't understand why shops that do upholstery every day have more trouble than I did!