Also finally finished up the side project with the seats. Made a cushion to replace the towels that can be seen in previous posts. Decided to make it have adjustable lumbar support and a removable cover.
Started with planning out the cuts:
Since I had now used a sewing machine for more than just an hour, I figured I would be able to lay everything out directly onto the fabric. Clearly that was not the case:
For the next one, I decided to go back to the trusty CAD. Came out much neater:
For the inflatable lumbar bit, I went on eBay and got some super cheap inflatable lumbar cushions:
Removed the outer fabric layer and was left with a pretty flat inflatable bladder:
Test fitting on the fabric. Smaller than the face of the cushion, but should work well:
And now for a quick prototype made with velcro and masking tape:
Here's the range of inflation for the lumbar part:
Getting everything sewn was pretty straight forward. Starting to get kinda decent at this:
Also attached the inflatable bladder to the fabric by the top corners so it wouldn't move around too much:
Here's the structural part of the cushion done:
Next came making the outer dinamica cover. Turns out dinamica is made in ~a million colors, so it was hard to find a perfect match. I did find a vendor that stocked a color that was super close, but a yard of the stuff was $120, so I decided against it. Ended up going with another vendor that had much more reasonable prices, even though they didn't stock the exact shade of black that Cobra uses.
Meh, close enough:
Laid out the cushions onto the fabric and traced around them. Used masking tape because I was afraid of the silver marker bleeding through:
Not super obvious in the pics, but one of the cushions is taller than the other. This is because my GF said that the back cushion pushed her head forward a bit too much when set at my height, so I made a slightly shorter one for her.
Here's the finished product and how it fits over the cushion with the inflatable bit:
Since the cushions were different sizes, I used the pseudo-embroidering feature on the sewing machine to label them. This one is labeled "D" for "driver":
Some more lumbar range testing:
Looks kinda lopsided in the pics, but I think that's just because I didn't fully seat it against the seat. It's much more even in real life.
And here's the finished product:
Color match is pretty good and it definitely looks less stupid than with the towels. Still not as cool looking as how the seats come from the factory, but I can make them look normal in a few seconds, so whatever. Was also able to stuff the inflating pump thing into the substrap hole on the bottom of the seat, so no weird bits sticking out from under the bottom cushions.
Honestly this whole thing turned out pretty good. Super happy with how much more comfortable they are for street driving.
Started with planning out the cuts:
Since I had now used a sewing machine for more than just an hour, I figured I would be able to lay everything out directly onto the fabric. Clearly that was not the case:
For the next one, I decided to go back to the trusty CAD. Came out much neater:
For the inflatable lumbar bit, I went on eBay and got some super cheap inflatable lumbar cushions:
Removed the outer fabric layer and was left with a pretty flat inflatable bladder:
Test fitting on the fabric. Smaller than the face of the cushion, but should work well:
And now for a quick prototype made with velcro and masking tape:
Here's the range of inflation for the lumbar part:
Getting everything sewn was pretty straight forward. Starting to get kinda decent at this:
Also attached the inflatable bladder to the fabric by the top corners so it wouldn't move around too much:
Here's the structural part of the cushion done:
Next came making the outer dinamica cover. Turns out dinamica is made in ~a million colors, so it was hard to find a perfect match. I did find a vendor that stocked a color that was super close, but a yard of the stuff was $120, so I decided against it. Ended up going with another vendor that had much more reasonable prices, even though they didn't stock the exact shade of black that Cobra uses.
Meh, close enough:
Laid out the cushions onto the fabric and traced around them. Used masking tape because I was afraid of the silver marker bleeding through:
Not super obvious in the pics, but one of the cushions is taller than the other. This is because my GF said that the back cushion pushed her head forward a bit too much when set at my height, so I made a slightly shorter one for her.
Here's the finished product and how it fits over the cushion with the inflatable bit:
Since the cushions were different sizes, I used the pseudo-embroidering feature on the sewing machine to label them. This one is labeled "D" for "driver":
Some more lumbar range testing:
Looks kinda lopsided in the pics, but I think that's just because I didn't fully seat it against the seat. It's much more even in real life.
And here's the finished product:
Color match is pretty good and it definitely looks less stupid than with the towels. Still not as cool looking as how the seats come from the factory, but I can make them look normal in a few seconds, so whatever. Was also able to stuff the inflating pump thing into the substrap hole on the bottom of the seat, so no weird bits sticking out from under the bottom cushions.
Honestly this whole thing turned out pretty good. Super happy with how much more comfortable they are for street driving.
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