RE: Original Seat Restoration

My seats are important to me, as well. I have the 1969 Evinrude Sportsman
(pictures are on the site). I am fortunate to have no cracks in my vinyl.
However, the webbing that you've described has basically disintegrated on
all of the seats. I was starting to sink in the driver's seat. I knew it
was just a matter of time before that extra stretching caused by the lack of
support caused irreperable harm. I handled it by placing pieces of plywood
under the cushion. It's pretty firm, but better than no support at all.
The frame had a lip on two of the four sides, so I didn't have to drill any
holes.

Greg Fell
  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-omc-boats@... [mailto:owner-omc-boats@...]On
Behalf Of Mstvsnd@...
  Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:39 PM
  To: omc-boats@...
  Subject: Re: Original Seat Restoration

  I don't know how you'd go about recovering the original seats. The outer
cover and color seems pretty integral to the seat itself.

  The work I've done on mine is limited to installing new web slings on the
frames to hold the flotation cushions, and repairing a couple of cracks in
the vinyl skin. To repair the cracks, I cut some vinyl patches, worked them
under the skin and applied epoxy to them through the crack and them duct
taped the crack closed until the epoxy dried, in effect gluing them to the
inside surface of the seat cover. This left a visible "scar", but stopped
the spread of the crack.

  I'll go to great lengths to preserve the original seats because they're
cool, and because I like the fact they're individually anchored so I can use
three, two or only one if I'm fishing alone.

  Mike Stevesand
Received on Wednesday, 12 May 2004