Re: Repairing vinyl Seats
You can suture the seat from the top side as long as you understand that it is a visible repair. As I am in the upholstery business, I am one for wanting it done correctly and invisible. It really isn't that tough or expensive.
As far as a mid-panel repair, the iron on patch from underneath is the the quickest fix. It also is visible, but not offensive. Get the low heat setting patches as anything with higher heat will melt the vinyl. But then again, if you have the seat off to place a patch, just get it fixed right.
100% agree. The absolute best way to repair is going to be to replicate what was originally done. In the case of tears that will generally involve replacing that panel. Blown seams would be re-stitching. I guess for me I would say you would need to do a value assessment of the repair and how much you can do yourself. If you are capable of removing the cover yourself and re-attaching it later then that will reduce the out of pocket cost in return for more of your time invested. The absolute easiest thing to do would be to drive the boat to an upholstery shop and have them take a look and give an estimate. No harm no foul.
To clarify some information from my previous snowmobile example cases:
The suture repairs were done mid-season and provided the quickest way to get back in business. For this repair you have to understand that the seat and fuel tank on the particular snowmobiles in question are attached to each other and removing the cover involves draining the tank, removing stuff to access fuel fittings, and removing the tank/seat. When on a trip you don't have the time to mess with this, but a suture repair in 5 minutes to prevent the tear from spreading is doable. Keep in mind that in my case these were black seats with black sutures to repair so weren't all that noticeable anyway. Rips in my snowmobile seats happen due to boot snags, trees, rolling the sled upside down, etc. (I ride hard
), so the seat isn't coming off just for a small tear.
The large tear that I repaired was about 12 inches long and mid-panel on a snowmobile that I purchased. I bought it that way. Had this been my machine the tear would have been stopped when it was small. Anyway, the quickest and easiest repair for this one definitely would have been to replace the cover which would have only cost me about $130 for a new one. This repair would have required a replacement of the ripped panel. A friend of mine had a panel replaced on his snowmobile seat and it cost him $70. Sounded a bit high to me when you can get a complete new cover for $130. Anyway, I did the iron on patch repair because I had all of the materials on hand and it didn't cost me anything to give it a try. I decided to try it and if it worked I saved $70 to $130. Rode the repaired seat for 2 trips this year and so far so good.
Both the iron on repair and the suture repair are visible, but the iron on repair with the tear filled on the visible side is only visible in that the color match of the filled crack isn't perfect. Other than that you can't see it.
As I said, it comes down to a value assessment in both hours required and $$ for me. I don't know exactly what kind or condition of boat we are talking about. I assume it is a pretty nice boat. I would be inclined to have a upholstery shop do the repairs if we are talking about a $20,000 boat, but if it is a $2,000 boat the value assessment changes.
Good luck in whatever you decide.
