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..........................................--- Cabin Cushions ---
Before our Fall 2010 Florida trip we had bought 3 inch Lux Foam - High Quality from foambymail.com (also know as thefoamfactory.com) for new cabin cushions as the original cushions were shot. We had also ordered new fabric to make new cushion covers.
We put these cushions off as the last project as they weren't a dire necessity. We were late in leaving after doing all of the other mods and didn't want to make totally new covers at this late date. I was able to quickly cut the foam for the old covers, but making new covers from scratch was going to take some time.
One other thing also came into play and that was we didn't like the fabric that we had ordered from Sailrite. The pattern and colors were colder looking to us than what the material looked like in the catalog. We really wanted to try a different pattern/color for our cushions.
We decide that since we didn't like the fabric that wasting it in an experiment wasn't a big deal. We thought we might be able to sew it over the old fabric on the old covers. That would be a lot quicker than making new covers as we wouldn't have to make the bottoms and put the zippers in. So that is what happened....
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I was the fabric cutter and pinned them to the old covers and Ruth sewed and we knocked these out in about 8 hours. Above I'm pinning a piece of material to the original cover.
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Here you can see the top of the cushion and the original material and the new piece that will cover it.
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The new piece was folded over and pinned to the original cover right along the seam where the top fabric meats the bottom naugahyde on the side away from the zipper.
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The back side was done first since it was easier to pin and sew that side first.
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The arrows point to the side that was sewn first. After Ruth finished sewing that side I would stuff the new foam into the cover and then stretch the new fabric over the top of the cushion and pin it along the sides and at the front where it met the zipper. I would compress the foam a little and pull the fabric tight before pinning it.
Sorry I don't have pictures of that.
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With it pinned I would pull the foam back out and give it back to Ruth and she would then sew the sides and down the along the zipper.
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Here is a finished cover without the foam of course.
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Where the zipper opening is you can see the original fabric inside under the new.
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A finished cushion with the foam. Our port and starboard cushions are the same as the port one was cut back length wise to allow for the storage cabinet on that side.
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A bottom view and the arrows point to where I could of pinned it a little closer to the original bottom, but still not bad considering how quickly we made these.
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We also did the back cushion covers the same way. Here are the starboard ones in place.
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We like the covers, but feel they are a little on the cold side and want to later replace them with some that have a little warmer look/feel to them. They are a lot nicer than what we had, so we will enjoy them until we can make replacements and having new foam is great.
On that count Ruth likes the foam, but I would like them a little stiffer. Not real sure what we might do there as the Lux is about as stiff as you can get. I might get foam for my side that is either thicker or maybe mix two foams to make them stiffer. Possibly 1/3 the thickness using the Lux and the other 2/3's some of the dryfast that we used in the cockpit as it is the only thing stiffer.
Remember though that we sit on these a lot on trips and I think most people would be real happy with the density of the Lux. I wouldn't go with anything that is less dense.
The main reason I posted this is that if you have existing covers that aren't coming apart at the seams and the zippers still work you can recover them as was done above pretty quickly and with out the work work/knowledge required to make covers from scratch.
