If your seat backs are as horrible as these - read on!

Cevema's upholstery was looking very tired so I decided that I would do something about it. I very quickly ruled out the possibility of commisioning a professional for the task as I am more than usually poor! I scanned 'e-bay' and the local free-ads paper Trade-it's web site until I spyed an industrial sewing machine going for the right price.

I installed said machine in my kitchen. Don't be tempted to do what my mate on the next pontoon at Watchet did. He decided to do some marine sewing on his wife's pride and joy, all singing, all dancing machine, without her permission, and totally wrecked it. He still had to buy an industrial machine and another machine for the wife as well as compensatory gifts!

I then totally re-upholstered Cevema - I may write that up one day but I didn't think to take any pictures. Gilbert Marine in their wisdom decided to cover the lockers behind the seats with naff little curtains, which I always disliked. I wanted some comfort so decided to make some cushioned seat backs. Here's how I went about it.

I firstly had to pay the foam barons another visit and bought more foam which seems to cost an arm and a leg. I also bought from them some spray contact adhesive which works very well with foam. I cut out the basic 'door' from some plywood I had kicking around my workshop and glued the foam to it leaving about half an inch protruding around the wood. I trimmed this off with my band saw using the ply as a guide. If you don't have a band saw I would advise taking your ply formers down to the foam suppliers and get them to cut it to size. It can be cut with a very sharp bread knife but is not easy.

Next stage is to make the cover. I bought my material for about £8 a yard which is cheap for decent quality material. I discovered that it really pays to shop around for fabric and foam. Prices seem to be governed by willingness to pay rather than quality on the whole. You'll need to buy some tailors chalk, plenty of long pins, some strong thread (big industrial cone shaped bobbins are hugely cheaper than domestic bobbins - dunno why), decent quality dress makers scissors (cheap scissors proved to be false economy) and a seam ripper.

Lay your fabric face down on a table and place your plywood bit on top. Draw around the wood with the tailors chalk. Then draw a second line half an inch outside the first and then cut around this line. You next need to make the sides. Measure around the inside line of the material you have just cut out and add one inch plus a bit more for safety! The width of this piece should be the thickness of the plywood/foam sandwich plus half an inch for the seam and a good inch for the back. Cut out the side piece and draw a line with chalk half an inch in from one long edge. You lay this edge face to face with front piece and hold it together with dressmakers pins. This is a tad tricky to acheive especially going around the rounded corners and even more difficult to describe! You then sew along the seam lines (half inch in from edge) Hopefully if you look at photo you'll see what I mean. It is important to sew inside out.

For the next stage you will need a heavy duty staple gun. I spent a fair bit of time investigating such devices and found that the best value for money was a 'Rapesco' electric gun which I found in Machine Mart.

This is very easy to use, very powerful, came with lots of staples of all different sizes and was considerably cheaper than most of the hand powered devices. It even comes with a heavy staple remover which you will need, unless you are much more clever than me. I have previously wasted money on a cheap staple gun for a work project and it was a tenner down the drain.

Next lay down the material as shown in the photo below and put the pad assemby, wood side up, down on it and gently and evenly pull the sides up.

There is a bit of a balancing act at this stage. You need enough tension in the fabric for the foam to be slightly under compression so that the pad maintains it's shape but too much and corners are squashed. I started in the middle of each side first and then worked towards the corners. The trickiest bit is maintaining an even pull on the material all the way along. You will need to keep a constant eye on it or you'll get maximum value from you staple removal tool.

At the corners you will need to cut darts to form the curved edge. At this stage it is very easy to pull the fabric too tight on the corners, as I discovered the hard way. More use of the staple removal tool!

When you have finished it should look like this.

Fitting them is pretty much strainght straight forward using laquared brass hinges. I used brass sprung ball catches at the top as they hold fast. One could use magnetic catches but I wouldn't want to trust them in the lumpy stuff.

You can see from this picture the hinges and catch I used.

Whilst I am very pleased with the end result of this project, I must emphasize that it is very much a personal first attempt and that I have had no tuition.

Ralph Ferrand