Re: Repair & Reupholster Or Replace
Hey fishrdan, do you have any pics of your last job. I think you had said that your last one didnt turn out that bad. Id like to see it.
Ummm

NO

it's gone to the boat graveyard
In that 72 SeaSwirl the floor was rotten, foam soaked, stringers where going and the transom had bad spots. The engine was ready to go back in when I broke out the circular saw and found out how bad the hull was, so I hauled it to the landfill. I'm working on an 01 Crestliner rebuild right now.
Sorry no pics, but the interior on the SeaSwirl was constructed with carpeted boxes (4" radiused corners) and foamed seats and seatbacks. Most of the panels were just folded and stapled, but I had to stitch up the rear seat covers and doghouse covers. With the wife's sewing machine, heavy thread and a few hours of stitching I was able to do a nice job on the vinyl. The exposed seat corners were rounded so no folded vinyl corners could be seen, the vinyl was pulled and stretched over the rounded foam corners so ugly folded corners were hidden from sight. Even the boat wasn't much to look at I got compliments at the dock at how good the interior looked (people were probably thinking, what's interior like that doing in a boat like,,, that...)
I think I still have the dog house in the back yard, if so I'll post up a pic of my handy work.
Merit,
When I upholstered my interior 8-10 years ago I visited a few upholstery supply shops and selected a nice off white marine vinyl. Cost was something like $10/yard, and total supplies $200 for the whole interior's vinyl,,, but that was 10 years ago. The upholstery shop had all the supplies I needed. At the end the vinyl was starting to show it's age, but that was after years of use/abuse/wear and tear.