JEC Seminars

[christopher storey]

Yesterday I attended ( in the blizzard ! ) the JEC seminar on how to restore leather and vinyl trim at the Jaguar works at Castle Bromwich . Although this is quite expensive as seminars go (? 60 for members) it was worth every penny , and most instructive and encouraging . Quite a few people took their own seats , consoles etc along and worked on them under supervision,






but in a sense I got the best deal because there were 8 of us who did not bring our own stuff along , and got a full days instruction, including hands on trying out the various stages, in restoring in our case a Mark 2 seat cushion . The fascinating thing was how, after stripping the lacquer and pigment off, it was possible to fill quite nasty cracks etc in the leather with flexible filler so that a very sorry looking cushion came up like new . We started with this ( the pigment had already been taken off - it did not take very long )







and ended with this



This was all done within the period 930 am to about 330 pm and was a fairly complete rundown on what one can do with old , stiff, cracked and discoloured leather , and even with torn and holed leather - not the case with this cushion but we were shown now to deal with it




Anyone interested in this subject will gain enormous confidence from going along to one of these - JEC usually does about one a year, and you get a very good lunch and afternoon tea thrown in . All the materials, and quite a lot of videos etc about how to do it, are available on the Furniture Clinic website

[PeterCrespin]

Sounds good. I always fancied that seminar. A fortnight ago I had 'Mr Leatherique' Rob Laughton give me personal tuition in my garage and brew up a colour match for my MkIX seats, because he was visiting his brother who lives 15 miles away.

Here's hoping the write-up avoids three full but totally captionless pages of small photos showing parked cars, like the X350 seminar report does in the current JEC magazine. Pages 84, 85 & 86 of the March issue are probably the greatest waste of space I've ever seen in any publication. Yet the Editorial apologises for leaving out a feature on Jaguar SatNav because 'As usual, space is at a premium...' Huh?

Pete

[APersoons]

Looks like an interesting seminar.

Coincidentally, I've been doing exactly this to the Daimler v8 in the past (and next) few weekends.

The furniture clinic products are really effective, I've become such a big fan of their rejuvenator oil, I ordered 5 litres this week!
The removal of the old dye definitely is the least pleasant part.

Another great product I found for the colouring stage is Vinylkote by Kolorbond http://www.kolorbond.co.uk/
I used it to get the new hardura to match exactly with the vinyl and leather on a 62FHC, made all the difference on the hardura boot mat.
Said to work great on leather too, but have yet to try this.

Axel

[christopher storey]

Axel : interesting that you are doing a Daimler V8 . I have just a few months ago got mine back on the road after 29 years. It is rather a rare car being one of the last of the mark 2s ( built June 1967 ) but with original manual and overdrive





What is yours?

[APersoons]

Christopher, it's is also a 1967 2 1/2 litre!
Unfortunately it is an automatic as almost all cars were, it's a real shame Jaguar didn't offer the manual gearbox from the beginning, especially if you know why they didn't.

I'm in the process of putting it back on the road after 10 years of sitting in a corner in the garage.
It's currently at the painters and should have it back in a few weeks.

The Daimler V8 engine is largely underrated in my opinion, it's such a sweet unit. A manual would really bring out it's eagerness to rev.
With a few cc's more, even an e-type would struggle to keep up, as Jaguar found out during testing.
: http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C362172# now that could make a proper 'stealth' car .

[steve3.8]

To me that?s a combination I have always admired , the golden sand with red interior , not only a fairly rare car Christopher its in the right colours , well done for restoring it . I had a 1965 2? V8 auto for restoration in the late 80?s but I realised it needed a lot more money than its value so sold it all off as spares-- not the case with a manual car though , never mind I gained some MK2 / Daimler knowledge along the way , i still have the factory parts manual if you are interested .