Hi Laura et al,
Yes, I did recover the wheel for my 1500 rebuild project.
I made a template out of paper, a test piece for the spoke
joints out of vinyl, then made the whole thing out of
leather.
I used very thin black split cowhide bought from Tandy
Leather. Its very soft, like glove leather - not like
tooling leather. I had to make it in 2 pieces due to its
length, but put the 2 seams at 10 and 2 oclock, where they
won't be under the hands. (If I had made only 1 seam it
would have been at the bottom where the original join was.)
There is stretch in the leather - greater one way than the
other. Put the most stretch across the rim of the wheel (ie
across the short direction of your cover) so you can pull it
up tight at the joint around the circumference. I made the
mistake of putting the stretch the other way thinking I
needed it to go around the wheel - wrong!
I turned the edges under for about 1cm (3/8") all the way
around and contact glued them down. Then folded it in half
so the two stitched edges are one on top of the other, and
ran the edges under the sewing machine with a large (size
18) needle on 6mm (1/4") stitch length to make perforations
at regular distances about 3mm (1/8") from the edge. I
didn't do the parts where they cross the spokes.
Then stretched the cover over the wheel and hand sewed it
on with linen thread, using the perforations and 'baseball'
style stitches. Where the cover crosses the spokes, I
double stitched at the start and end of each one, and
carried the thread across behind the spoke. The fewer free
ends of thread, the less chance of coming undone.
I sued the cover for a season on my MK IV, and it worked
fine but put it away for the 1500 project, hopefully to be
done this year.
Cheers, Fred
Laura G. wrote:
>
> Hi there listers,
>
> Has anybody out there actually restitched the leather on their steering
> wheel themselves?
> I love my steering wheel very, very much. And now that the spokes are all
> polished-it's
> gorgeous! I had the leather filled in the bad places and resprayed, and it
> looked good for
> a couple of weeks. But, it was just too far gone even at that point. Other
> than settle for a
> new steering wheel-which I can neither afford at this point-or even *want*
> (I really like
> the one I have-it's original)-I can have the leather restitched.
> However, no one I know wants to take on that job-from what I understand,
> it's not a very fun job.
> And the one who will do it wants as much as a new wheel to do it!
>
> I'm not too bad with a needle, but I've never done leather-where would I
> look for leather? What
> would be the proper type? Where would I start-literally and figuratively?
>
> Any input, anybody?
>
> TIA,
> Laura G.
> Vita brevis est: rapide agite, vigore strigate!
--
Fred & Wendy Griffiths,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
http://www.cadvision.com/griffco/index.htm
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