Choosing Interior Colors

I went to Tandy Leather here in Tucson and picked out my leather. I took it to the upholstery shop with my design and how I wanted the stitching to look and they did their magic. They even used someone else to embroidery the Piper logo on the seat backs. You have a Tandy in Syracuse.
 
Lol... you guys are SERIOUSLY complicating my life. ;)....and... much appreciated.
 
I'm a little confused - are you guys saying these local hot-rod upholstery shops are going to be cheaper or better? My experience with 2 local shops that said they did upholstery were neither. Admittedly I looked them up online or via yellow pages, but I didn't have anyone to recommend a shop where I live.

I'm positive you can get beautiful interiors done by these hot-rod shops, but I'm also thinking they would cost @MuseChaser a fortune.
 
iflyvfr said:
I'm a little confused - are you guys saying these local hot-rod upholstery shops are going to be cheaper or better? My experience with 2 local shops that said they did upholstery were neither. Admittedly I looked them up online or via yellow pages, but I didn't have anyone to recommend a shop where I live.

I'm positive you can get beautiful interiors done by these hot-rod shops, but I'm also thinking they would cost @MuseChaser a fortune.
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Well, we'll never know until I follow through and find out for myself, which I will do. Will head out to the plane tomorrow, grab a bunch of very specific pics and maybe pull a panel if it's not too onerous, and then make contact w/ the two respected shops in the area. Might take me a few days, but I'll report back.
 
MuseChaser said:
Well, we'll never know until I follow through and find out for myself, which I will do. Will head out to the plane tomorrow, grab a bunch of very specific pics and maybe pull a panel if it's not too onerous, and then make contact w/ the two respected shops in the area. Might take me a few days, but I'll report back.
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Please do, we at POA love to spend other people's money and LOVE pics of same. We haven't had a good renovation thread on here in a while. I wish I had documented my interior renovation - it was epic.
 
iflyvfr said:
I'm a little confused - are you guys saying these local hot-rod upholstery shops are going to be cheaper or better? My experience with 2 local shops that said they did upholstery were neither. Admittedly I looked them up online or via yellow pages, but I didn't have anyone to recommend a shop where I live.

I'm positive you can get beautiful interiors done by these hot-rod shops, but I'm also thinking they would cost @MuseChaser a fortune.
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Both.

It’s all in the links I posted.
 
iflyvfr said:
I'm a little confused - are you guys saying these local hot-rod upholstery shops are going to be cheaper or better? My experience with 2 local shops that said they did upholstery were neither. Admittedly I looked them up online or via yellow pages, but I didn't have anyone to recommend a shop where I live.

I'm positive you can get beautiful interiors done by these hot-rod shops, but I'm also thinking they would cost @MuseChaser a fortune.
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I'm thinking the shops you went to didn't want to do it, therefore they quoted you something ridiculous so you'd go away. OR you said it was for an airplane and they got scared. The one I went to was recommended by a friend who's had his airplane seats upholstered by them and they repair all the Tucson police cars' upholstery in addition to their regular stuff. Not exactly a hot rod shop, just a good upholstery shop that specializes in cars and airplanes. It is run by a Vietnam veteran and his ex-Marine son. I try to get them all the business they can get.
 
iflyvfr said:
Please do, we at POA love to spend other people's money and LOVE pics of same. We haven't had a good renovation thread on here in a while. I wish I had documented my interior renovation - it was epic.
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Speaking of epic renovation journeys, this guy's blog about his PA28-140 resto is pretty detailed and very impressive. My greatest fear is that I become as obsessive about this project as he was. Check this out... you may have to scroll down a lot to get to the beginning of the interior restoration which, coincidentally, starts with the post about color selection... :)

https://n98297.blogspot.com/
 
Timbeck2 said:
I'm thinking the shops you went to didn't want to do it, therefore they quoted you something ridiculous so you'd go away. OR you said it was for an airplane and they got scared. The one I went to was recommended by a friend who's had his airplane seats upholstered by them and they repair all the Tucson police cars' upholstery in addition to their regular stuff.
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You're exactly right on the second shop, they were scared when I said 'airplane'. The first shop seemed clueless - they did armrests for me and were expensive and crap.

Dodd @ Airtex did an amazing job on my armrests in my 172 compared to the originals. 6380442359_5317f1fc50_z.jpg
 
iflyvfr said:
You're exactly right on the second shop, they were scared when I said 'airplane'. The first shop seemed clueless - they did armrests for me and were expensive and crap.

Dodd @ Airtex did an amazing job on my armrests in my 172 compared to the originals. View attachment 77813
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That's an Airtex interior? It looks beautiful!
 
Once you get into it - you'll find a bunch of 'while I'm in here' type things. Corrosion that needs fixed, firewall blanket painted to match, deteriorated external speaker, etc.
 
MuseChaser said:
That's an Airtex interior? It looks beautiful!
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Yes. I sent the seat frames completely disassembled to him for paint and upholstery. Found the headrests in a auto junkyard - stripped and sent to him. Then had him do my armrests. But there was so much more to that redo. It's something my buddy & I look back on and enjoy rehashing because as I said it was a pretty epic undertaking.

Here's a 'before' shot where I had the armrests done by a local shop and painted the center console to see if I liked the colors. I was preparing myself mentally and financially for the undertaking. Everything was done using spray-on SEM, just FYI. 6325581217_6b0b4a6672_z.jpg
 
I’m not impressed with the new two tone Bonanza interiors folks are getting. I’m seeing them on FB. They look like expensive leather clown seats. But I didn’t pay the $$$$... nor would I. ;)
 
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@iflyvfr
I'd be thrilled to be flying something that looks like your "before" shot... sigh... mine looks like an "after" shot....as in "after a field stripping or fire"...
 
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MuseChaser said:
Speaking of epic renovation journeys, this guy's blog about his PA28-140 resto is pretty detailed and very impressive. My greatest fear is that I become as obsessive about this project as he was. Check this out... you may have to scroll down a lot to get to the beginning of the interior restoration which, coincidentally, starts with the post about color selection... :) https://n98297.blogspot.com/
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Ahh, that brings back memories. It was a lot of work, which made it worth it and gratifying to both of us. Just yesterday my buddy was showing off 'his interior' to his GF as she rode with me for the 1st time! :D
 
iflyvfr said:
Ahh, that brings back memories. It was a lot of work, which made it worth it and gratifying to both of us. Just yesterday my buddy was showing off 'his interior' to his GF as she rode with me for the 1st time! :D
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Is that your blog?!? Color me extremely impressed!
 
MuseChaser said:
Well, we'll never know until I follow through and find out for myself, which I will do. Will head out to the plane tomorrow, grab a bunch of very specific pics and maybe pull a panel if it's not too onerous, and then make contact w/ the two respected shops in the area. Might take me a few days, but I'll report back.
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OK... reporting back. Found a highly regarded hotrod upholstery shop that was only a mile or so from my home airport.. very excited about that!... so I called him. "Yeah, I've done a lot of aircraft. Too busy... maybe next winter, as in more than a year from now.. call me back then if you want." Goody. So, I headed down to the guy local to my house that I've used for some auto stuff before who is THE guy in the Syracuse area.. lots of the classic and hotrod guys use him. Showed him the panel I had pulled from the airplane, some pics of the panels currently in the plane, and the seats, then a pic I had saved from one of the examples posted on the Airtex site. We talked for a while, and he was nice as usual, but he's selling his business to one of his apprentices and retiring and was furiously just trying to get the jobs done he'd already committed to. He said he'd done quite a few experimental aircraft and seemed a little concerned about doing a certified one, but I assured him it was just a matter of having material with the correct burn certs, and he was aware of that. He was nice enough so say he'd look into and get back to me, but I'm not real confident.

Sooo... kinda back to square one. The panel I pulled is really so simple that I'm pretty confident I could make one, even with my limited sewing skills (I sewed a couple big speaker and amp covers for my Magnepan speakers and a hefty amp out of very heavy UV-resistant canvas.. that's the extent of it). My wife, on the other hand, is EXTREMELY unexcited about me taking on this project, convinced that it'll look awful. It'll be a hard sell.. she'd WAY rather just drop the time on an Airtex interior (to be honest, I'm still leaning that way myself, but it's hard to ignore @Timbeck2 's advice which has been spot-on in the past and saved me a lot of time and money already). Might just get some extremely cheap, non-approved materials (i.e., old bed sheets, maybe an old flannel blanket as pretend padding, and poster board), attempt to replicate/make one of the panels just for kicks, put it in the airplane (and then immediately remove it, of course) to see how it goes. If it looks possible and not totally crappy (except for the material itself being crappy), who knows... maybe it'd be worth it.

The ol' spend time or spend money conundrum, coupled with self-doubt of ability vs. skills of professionals. My gut is still telling me to spend money on Airtex's work, rather than a lot of time and possible lackluster results on my own work. Wish my contacts w/ auto upholsterers had gone better today.. that WOULD have been a wonderful solution. Any other auto upholsterers in the Syracuse/Cortland NY area that you folks know of?
 
Oh.. one thing I wanted to add/ask.. Scott (the Syracuse-based auto guy) mentioned that he was using thin aluminum sheets for backing boards in hotrods, and wondered if that would work/be OK in airplanes. Obviously, it'd meet the burn requirements! Could that be done instead of corrugated polyethylene board or ABS plastic?
 
OK.. another couple hours of my life gone while wading through legalese (nothing "ese"y about it.. should be called "legalstrain," or "legalmaiming") in FAR 28.853, articles linked to here and a few other threads, various other web searches, suppliers' websites, etc. Really don't want to turn this into another "what can you do/what can't you do" thread... but the more I read, the less certain I become. For instance..

1. For part 91 aircraft, we can use any material that is "flame resistant," ... yet we have to prove it, have it tested, or pay a HUGE premium per yard for material from aircraft suppliers.

2. If you buy the bulk material from Airtex, which is much cheaper than stuff from, say, Gilbreath or even Aircraft Spruce, and Airtex states that it exceeds the requirements of 23.853(a), it does NOT come with FAA from 8110-3, which I gather is the FAA document needed to prove that it does... so you still need to get it tested anyway!??! AND... if it doesn't come with that document... do ANY of the panels or seat kits sold by Airtex come with that document?

Driving me nuts... I hate the physical side of working on cars and MUCH prefer working on my plane, but the mental anguish of these regulations MORE than negates the slight positives physically.

@Timbeck2 is correct.. there is a Tandy leather here in Syracuse. Now all I need is an upholstery shop that wants work or isn't closing, and someone to light that leather on fire for $50 and give me a piece of paper.

Only step forward is that it seems that using aluminum as an interior panel backing is fine. Finally got around to reading a quote I got from AviationsCreations.com .. their stuff looks beautiful. Just the four side panels, with aluminum backing, would be $2845.

Airtex is looking better and better ... except for that lack of 8110-3? triple sigh...

OH... and .. for anyone who read my post yesterday extolling the joys of flying.. I am not bipolar. Just confused by the regs.. and not a big fan of confusion.
 
If you do go with the Airtex kits you will need to be handy, as you get no helpful instructions. I cribbed from another fellow Grumman owner blog to do mine. If you nave a complex seat situation, or are faced with an issue of disintegrated foam etc, requiring a complete rebuild from bare frame, you can always send your seats to Airtex and have them do some work. I had the horrible horseshoe seats that was beyond my skill set to fix to fit the Airtex kit. I stripped both seats and sent them to the Airtex shop and they did them for a VERY reasonable price, like $200 total, using my kit materials, they look great. The panels and rear seats were quite easy once you figured them out. The rear seat pan required drilling out about 100 pop rivets and shaking out the debris. The wall panels were trivial.

If you go down the interior road, you may find you will enter the plastic trim Twilight zone while you are at it. That's another time suck. All the plastic in my plane was brittle as old eggshells. It's all done now. NEVER AGAIN.
 
Thanks for chiming in again, chemgeek. My seats are about as simple as they get, fortunately. I've taken out some of the panels on our plane, so I'm assuming I'll be able to get new ones in....... at least I hope so! ;)

I hear ya about the plastic trim pieces... a bunch of mine are cracked and in pieces. I've done some plastic and fabric painting before when I renovated (partially) an old Fiat Spider and that came out pretty good. I'm hoping to be able to repair and salvage a good bit of my trim, but you're right about it being brittle. Knowing my wife and my obsessive, perfectionist natures, I'm concerned that once we start we'll never fly again... just repair.

Does anyone know if a fabric that meets this... Flame Resistance: CA 117-E, UFAC Class I, NFPA 260 .. is acceptable?
 
See? If you hadn’t asked PoA what color to use, you’d have avoided a lot of suffering.

Hahahahaha. :)
 
Perhaps nows a good time to talk to him about LOP and AOAs???
 
Just saw this. That's a shame you can't get anyone close to do it for you any time soon. Go with your gut then. Airtex has the templates and the know how.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Just saw this. That's a shame you can't get anyone close to do it for you any time soon. Go with your gut then. Airtex has the templates and the know how.
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Phew.... ;) ... now I can do that with a clear conscience. I was holding out until I heard back from you. Really. Still stressing over colors, but am looking forward to this whole project. Thanks, Tim.
 
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