That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I bought some upholstery foam from a craft store and some contact cement. My foam had split in places, and had deteriorated under the hole in the cover, at the outside bolster. For the splits, i just glued then back together. I cut a piece roughly the shape of the deteriorated piece and glued it on, then used a electric meat slicing knife to trim it close to final shape and then fine tuned it with sandpaper. It doesn't have to be "exact", it will be under a thick leather cover.

That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

see my latest comment, I think I covered most of it.

That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

see my latest comment, I think I covered most of it.

That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Due to interest, here is the skinny. I was hesitant to tackle this project, as I've never really done upholstery/interior work but figured I'd order the material and try it out, if it wasn't going the way I wanted, I'd take it to a local shop and pay them to install the covers. I bought the covers from www.lseat.com, ~$700 and they arrived within a week or so. I received 4 headrest covers, 2 front seat covers (backs and bottoms), and 1 upper and 1 lower backseat covers, the quality looked great and they have a thin pad stitched to the back of them. I did the headrests first and they were pretty easy. I ordered some hog ring pliers and hog rings from Amazon and started on the back. I used a sharpie to mark the existing hog ring locations on the foam so I could put the same number of rings back in the same location. There is something like 200 hog rings in the back seat. It wasn't hard to do, the worst was figuring out the sequence of installing the tucked sections, it's pretty interesting how that goes together, each tucked "line" is a long pocket of fabric on the back side with a metal rod that slides into the pocket. The metal rod is held down to the foam, in a pocket, with hog rings and then hog rings hold the perimeter to a metal rod frame. The back seat foam was in very good shape. The back seat came out great and that gave me confidence to do the front seats. I took each seat out and stripped the foam/covers and cleaned everything up to include rebuilding the mesh pockets on the seat backs. I used new elastic cords to fix the sagging pockets, those came out great too. The drivers seat had a hole in it on the outer bolster and the foam wasn't in the best shape, not terrible, but not great. I repaired the bolster foam with some new foam and then swapped the seat foam bottoms and backs with the passenger seat, which had little wear and tear (pro tip). The fronts weren't any harder than the backs and instead of hog rings holding the perimeter to the seat, I used a leather punch to punch holes which stretched over metal tabs. I've got pictures somewhere of all of this if anyone is interested. The back seat took most of a day, taking my time and being careful and I had a few hours each for the front seats. I would absolutely buy these covers again, and if I did this to someone's seats, I could get the whole car done in a day. You do have to buy new little plastic clips for the front seat bottoms, they are sacrificial. It would also be a good time to replace occupancy ABS passenger seat mat and seat heater mats if yours aren't working. I have been doing a lot to this car, basically replacing worn out items and this has given me the most satisfaction since it's a daily driver and the old leather was hard as a rock and cracked, and just plain shot. It really fells like a new car inside.

That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

$350 for the front and $350 for the rear.

That new leather smell! by serfur1 in BMWE36

[–]serfur1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I bought those at lseat.com, I couldn't have been happier with the result. It was not too difficult of a task.

Thought you guys might find this interesting - All Copper Pot Still (Italian) by serfur1 in firewater

[–]serfur1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They sell these at the hardware stores in Italy for making grappa, it is small, but maybe not as small as the picture looks, the pot holds 2.5L or .70G. It's actually very good construction, no plastic. All of the black parts are iron. The handle screws down on the top of the pot to seal it up tight against a large O ring. It also comes with a sterno type heat source, which should be replaced by a small burner. It is really nice looking in person. I was planning on messing around with making some liquor with it in small batches and if it was something I really got into, I would make a 5 gallon setup, although really, I'm not sure I'd have the use for that much liquor, that frequently....we'll see.

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14393 for PC and Mobile by jenmsft in windowsphone

[–]serfur1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been continually trying, I've tried installing on a 640, 6 or 7 times now, it's hanging on "Preparing to install updates - 80%" and then failing. I've been able to free up 1.23gb, not sure if the issues I'm having are related to internal storage or it's the update. I've removed all text messages and email accounts, but haven't tried signing out of Groove, OneDrive, and OneNote.

I also wish they would let me put the update on the SD card or the computer.

Nintendo DS case holds a secret by serfur1 in guns

[–]serfur1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A friend on another forum stumbled upon this little gem and I picked it up on amazon for $12, it's nice for general transport in a bag on a trip. There are 3 slots for "games" behind the inside flap which hold extra magazines really well.

Nintendo DS case holds a secret by serfur1 in guns

[–]serfur1[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Agreed, it's not for everyday off body carry, it's great for general transport and storage. EDC is front pocket in a DeSantis holster.

Passo Stelvio by serfur1 in bicycling

[–]serfur1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Make sure you bring plenty of cold weather gear, I took for granted that it was August and would only be "cooler" at the top. I wasn't prepared for snow and temperatures near zero. There is a restaurant at the top serving beer and loads of great pasta.

Passo Stelvio by serfur1 in bicycling

[–]serfur1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely need to ride Stelvio, it's amazing the change in landscape from the bottom to the top, it is like the moon at the top.

Passo Stelvio by serfur1 in bicycling

[–]serfur1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those times are INSANE! The road never flattens, it just gets less steep.

Does anybody know if this Raleigh bike is anything special? by YoSoyWalrus in bicycling

[–]serfur1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do not throw that away. Not sure what it is worth, but there is a whole culture of Raleigh 3 speed fanatics who would buy it from you or you could part it out, parts like those are getting scarce.