The 'E' Type Forum

I'm in the process of having my front seats recovered by a local upholstery shop. When they disassembled the seats, they noted to be the condition of the metal base and seat back. Apparently, in these seats distant past the leather and foam was glued to the frame creating a bit of a mess. Additionally, both the seat back and bottom were showing a bit of rust.

My first inclination was to get the frames sandblasted and then powder coated. However, the upholstery owner showed me the tack strip that surrounds the lower edge of each seat base. I'm not referring the the wooden tack strip that is available from the usual resellers. Instead, this is a strip of some kind of material (about 1/4 to 3/8 inch wide around the circumference of the seat base. The leathers are stapled into this strip. The powder coat shop says that their process of acid dipping, then sand blasting, let alone the 400 degree oven for power coating would destroy this material. I can't seem to identify what this material is and if it is available to purchase and install afterwards. Otherwise, I'm going to have to clean the bases by hand and not get as good of a finish as I would like.

Any information on what this material is and if it can be replaced would be much appreciated.

Hi Bob....you could contact some of the trimmers to see if they have a replacement product to use.....when i done my seat bases i remember thinking it looked very much like sash cord as used in old style windows. ...Steve

Further research indicated that this is a tack (or squab) strip. It is a rubberized (with some fiber) material. It was dried and cracked so I removed it. After I showed the material to the trimmer he identified the material and ordered some tack strip (3/8 inch by 1/2 inch) to replace the old stuff.

I then took the bases without the tack strip back to the powder coat business to be acid dipped, sand blasted, and powder coated. Pics to follow on the finished product.

Power coating is nice, completely unnecessary in this and many uses today. I believe folks think it to be some sort of a status thing? Epoxy primer is the most important then most any topcoat is all that's needed.
The world is mad over power coat. I am biased as a painter, routinely seeing my work 20 years later still perfect, especially as most are garage queens LOL

Powder coating is handy for some applications. Here’s an Aston rear subframe from a 17k miles car where the factory waved some paint at it during production:





And here it is after powder coating :