Instructions for replacing your surf / wake boat seat skins at Gabe's Custom Marine.

hey everybody this is billy at be tough man i'm here with gabe and uncle roy right is that right uncle roy uncle roy is working on the upholstery here we're going to do a seat skin replacement now we touched on that a while back and a lot of people still had questions because we talked about removal of it but today we're not only going to do a removal but we're going to do a reinstall and we want this to kind of be a instruction manual for you of course for you people that do know gabe's custom marine here in atwater california they are a uh top-tier upholstery place for especially wake surf boats wakeboard boats uh gabe senior worked at malibu for a lot of years and uh when you leave here it looks as good as factory sometimes better so we're to get into it roy here is going to start taking this thing apart and then we'll just do the instructions on how to do it what do you think yes okay so show us what we're doing first so this would be one here first of all i want to show people what you're playing gabe we talked about this i'm one of your most uh i don't want to say picky but i'm a perfectionist right i'm replacing this because of this now most people would let that ride right most people would say like that's no big deal but i can't do it right so i'm here replacing something that most people would not replace but one thing you said that's interesting and this is true that if you fix thing if you fix things along the way you're not stuck with this huge thing this huge project down the road exactly you know you can get some things going throughout the year keep your boat looking nice the whole time and then you don't have to bring it in for a full-on restoration right okay all right roy we're going to send it to you what are we doing here we're going to start pulling staples right now yeah taking it apart where can you get this this tool is a common tool or now it's pretty common you can buy one of these on amazon they probably run you about 16 bucks it's called i think the most popular brand is osborne osborne it's a staple remover right yes simple stiff remover and they seem like they pop out pretty easy right once you get them going yeah when you're pulling staples out of plastic it's not as hard as let's say sometimes wood sometimes when you're dealing with wood it likes to hold them staples and then sometimes it actually will rust and then you're pulling staples and breaking so now you're doing double work broken staples have to go back and pull them out with some some wire cutters now there was a trim piece on here but that comes off real easy right you just start it just yanks all the way out takes the staples with it yeah now when you put staples back in i'm going to i'm going to assume that you want to use stainless right so this is a pretty common question i get so this is the brand that we like to use and the main thing is that you use stainless steel okay there's the part number on it yeah so you can see right there i also get a lot of questions as far as you know what staple staple gun to use these are the type that we use and these are you know they're going to cost you a lot of money if you try and buy one of these um you can probably go to harbor freight lowe's and pick up something that you can just use to complete the job and you know it won't break the bank yeah i'll use some staple guns they look similar they're probably not as good as that industrial one but like you said they haven't harbor freight they're like 50 bucks and they work pretty darn good for what they are yeah i mean if you use it repeatedly you want one of those yeah if it's your job yeah exactly all right looks like we got all the staples off right there's a lot of them how do you know if the if this is still good the cushion is there a way to tell on that usually you know if it's in your boat and you can sit on it you put your knee on the foam if you just straight go down to the plastic base and you feel it go hard it's probably time for some new form okay you know this is in pretty good condition to where we're gonna steam it up and it's gonna puff everything up put a little bit of life back into it which that's another question i get pretty often how can i reuse the foam or do i have to replace it well if it can be steamed up and and brought back to life yeah then you know go ahead so what did we do there we just let me show you so you get a blade here right just a blade and this has a little bit of glue on the outside so it doesn't it usually doesn't have glue right here yeah okay so it's gonna have glue on the outside that you're gonna have to cut off from here to here and that this piece right here will come right out right yep okay so now you have is this more staples okay yeah so this is it's a different tool this is uh called the pull tab this piece of vinyl right here so this is just what holds your bead down and tight across the center of the fish okay probably use a flathead screwdriver on this right yeah sometimes you can just pull them right out roy how many cushions you think you've done in your lifetime hundreds yes more yeah he's been in the game i've been doing this since just as long as my dad's pretty finished whoa so now this doesn't come off no that stays on there okay and you don't have to worry about getting this does that have to be taken off no no the foam's gonna so is this steam right here now a normal person's not going to be able to do this right i mean i mean unless you have to have a special tool right that did puff that up though but i can't even smell it man it smells like new vinyl wow does that actually add to the position of it too yeah what it's going to do really is while we're pulling it because you could see how it was all compressed from the vinyl before yeah so what this is going to do is allow us to put the vinyl on pull it tight and make sure that it's all full like it's got the cool look to it without it already being compressed and that's trying to put the vinyl on it and it compressing even more okay now is this a glue this is called silicone this is a lubricant it's a lubricant oh so it'll slide yeah help help the vinyl slide across the okay and you can also use plastic some people will want to put plastic over their phone to keep the water from getting in which can help sometimes it will if water does get in it'll kind of keep the water there all right so now roy you're bringing this over you just put it in tight right here let me show you real quick this is a kind of an important part see where the bead is okay you're going to want that to be right about there at the edge of the it goes right here on the corner so you want the bead to be lined up with pretty much flush with this top layer of foam okay and you're going to want it to be like that all the way across that way doesn't sink in too deep right because otherwise it'll be too deep also notice how he's got cuts here what that's for is so that way it relieves the stress in that pull tab so you can stretch it from the left now is that going to be a pre-cut from you guys are they going to have to do that they're going to have to usually they we leave it all together okay see so he tacked down the back so now he can um hey do you glue this one onto this one yeah usually we'll put a little bit of glue so that way it just holds in place so that way when you're pulling this over you don't want uh to pull it and then pull this back oh okay you know so keep that right at the edge another thing that we do is see how he stapled this down you want that corner to just be over the edge right about there over the phone you don't want to pull it too tight oh yeah because then you're gonna you know start having a corner dip down on you yeah and then that could also start creating gaps between your cushions okay spray a little bit on the foam and the backing right yes and then you don't see you don't put very much no no you just need enough just to keep it in place and it holds pretty quick yeah how backed up are you on skins right now like i saw this actually got pretty uh caught up to where you know it's usually about maybe a four week lead time depending on what we need to do um but it could be sooner if it's you know a couple of couple cushion skins we can get that done so another thing that the steam will actually help do it's going to help loosen up this vinyl so that way it'll stretch and go over the foam pretty nicely without leaving a bunch of wrinkles okay now can anybody use anything else if they don't at home you can use a heat gun a heat gun yeah you can use a heat hair dryer maybe air dryer a hair dryer probably won't put out enough heat um i know they sell like so you want to get the vinyl warmed up is that what it is yes it'll stretch yes okay that's going to help stretch and help reduce for any wrinkles that are in the vinyl or a lot of times when we send these skins out you know we've got to fold them up in boxes so then the vinyl creases a little bit in certain spots so when you add heat that's just gonna allow those creases to come out so you work around the cushion rather than just hammering one side right yeah see right now you've got to line up these beads and most cushions have this cut out right here and that's where your bead's supposed to lay oh okay i was going to ask you about that so how are you going to line it up with the other cushions but yeah that'll do it yeah all right that's how they come pre-cut from now he's doing it pretty quickly but something you do want to be aware of is this front seam you want this to just be over that first edge turning the around the the top of the foam and you want to make sure as you're going you're keeping that straight okay and there's a rubber thing here so that's where you know what to staple once you pass that you can what color is this you know in case anybody sees it this color that's a white this is moonbeam m grain and then the red is called ribbon those are all uh [Music] so [Music] is the vinyl is this is the vinyl separated from the front that little pad right there isn't coming out so a lot of vinyl when you buy it you can get it either with the foam already laminated on there we like to do it ourselves so that way there's you know you know the notorious pinking or reading of a lot of vinyl you know there's a lot of speculation that comes from either the glue that's holding the foam onto the vinyl it might be bacterial or microbes sitting in there and causing some coloration so we just try to minimize that by not holding the foam on just sewing it together leaving it loose roy i'd imagine that a lot of this is feel for you right you can feel it i see you you're hitting it pretty good you can feel it with your hands yeah you can fill in something as we're pulling the vinyl rubbing here because the foam pops out a little bit on over the edge of that plastic base and you don't want to see it jutting out you want it to be nice and smooth right here yeah how many skins are you shipping out right now do you think a year that's hard to say i know in the past two weeks we've probably sent out about like 15 boxes worth of skin whoa and that ranges between skins to you know just two three cushions maybe some hatches how how many times are people calling you after they get them asking you questions does it happen usually i i ask on the phone on installing themselves or taking them to a shop and that's one big reason we're doing this video is because i'm at least twice a day explaining how to how to do a cushion yeah um so you know i i talk to a lot of people about it and try and tell them you know you just kind of want to center the skin on the on the cushion before you start make sure the corners are lined up before you start stapling down that whole tab or else you're going to end up with a lopsided cushion a lot of times people will take new people on a boat right that aren't going to go around boats and you hear people a lot of people say please don't put your shoes on my upholstery right uh don't wear bling shorts all that stuff and a lot of times people don't realize like how much work goes into getting something fixed right or repaired it's a lot man it's a lot of work it's a lot of you know know-how experience i mean from having someone who can sew this up correctly to having someone who can install it correctly it's a lot of a lot of time and a lot of labor i know that probably the worst thing i've seen for boats is those flip-flops that have the bottle you know i've seen a bunch of fenders on trailers scratched up yeah i've seen holes and cushions really from that yeah so remember that don't wear bottle cap openers right on a boat you know what else is actually doing some a number on some cushions is some of the new surf gates have something about the sucks they'll put the suction cup down on the upholstery and it'll leave two rings right on the upholstery i don't know if you've seen that later i don't know if it's the oils from the thing but yeah i've replaced a couple pieces that that happened to i'm not sure if it's the sun getting hot underneath it like it turns it into a magnifying glass if it's like just like you said oils a lot of times if you get light staining the sun will fix it yeah just getting it out in the sun the uv will a lot of times clear without it i'd imagine having a new blade makes it a lot easier to ride it does yeah you definitely want to take your time with this right one slip up could be a complete bum or it could be this could be a thumb or it could be a complete redo oh you made that look easy another years so this is uh it's called hidem it's supposed to go over the staples keep everything hidden and looking good you supply this with your seat we do okay so you'll have enough to do this on your own okay and this will keep this from fraying and all that stuff right oh there's a little seam in there yeah that is clean another tip when you're putting on this item is see where he started it it was in a straight spot in the back okay so you don't want to start it in the curve yeah it would be really hard to do that on the curve yeah yeah and better towards the back right that way you don't see a seam right well that's pretty damn clean dude right i mean that's factory new it looks like there it is all right so how do they get a hold of people want to order them up what's the turnaround who what do we do uh you can give us a call an email gabescustommarine.com um our email address is gabe dot upholstery gmail.com or your facebook page right my facebook page you know on facebook send your message and then uh usually i'll need pictures of whatever you want done so that way i can you know visually see you know what you had this color with this grain um and then the whole number so that way i can check the work order and make sure we're using the right you have the templates for most the boats or they need to send them in they need we have templates for about 80 percent of the boats right um we don't have them for the newer boats uh and some of the very very older boats do you like to see a skin though so you can match up everything perfect or no if we got the patterns we don't need to see the skin you have the whole number we just need the whole number right pictures yeah okay but if someone had is that like my whole number is going to be different because i had a different color yeah so if you've had work done on it then you probably need to send it in yeah send it in so that way we can match it up and make sure it's done right and you can but if and people also can change call you can change like i did right you can change the colors you can change texture you can do you can change colors um as far as like there's certain color schemes that you want to stick with a lot of one well a popular thing that's done is this front band a lot of people like to make this color the same as their bead or their accent and it just adds a little bit more pop to the whole look of the boat yeah um we can swap out whether you want this to be like let's say you want this to be gray like this you want this to be white you want it a darker gray we can swap that out yeah i love this white too because it's not shiny it's like kind of like it's got a little bit of warm hit to it but it's like kind of like a dull white it's really nice so yeah really good well awesome work as always there you go that's how to skin your cushions all right thanks for watching this is billy at ptv

Channel: BTUFF

Views: 3,697

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: W6f79QG78dA

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021