Jonbrooks Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 (edited) So after inquiring about new seats to update the coach and finding out we are about 12 to 18 weeks out... decided I'll have to bang these things out myself. Wife- don't you think you should take some notes on this one? Me- it's OK it only works one way! Wife- how come whenever I push a button it keeps ejecting me out the door? Me- it's a Monaco design thing.... Full disclosure my shop deals with full restoration projects including upholstery. I've done multiple boat interior projects. Edited April 21, 2021 by Jonbrooks Spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Haggard Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 It looks like it was time for New 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vito.a Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 (edited) You're brave! That's smart doing them right there in the coach. Those seats are really heavy. Mine are below. The one on the right is the extra wide queen seat. Edited April 21, 2021 by vito.a 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDCrow Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 Awesome! Where did you get the material? We are in same boat, need to upgrade 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 I will bring a piece to Rochford supply in Minneapolis to match. I really didn't want to add this to my schedule of projects but they were talking about a August 24 ship date. I will only be replacing the seat plates in both. That is the only place with wear. It's way easier to disassemble these monsters in the coach and bring them out in pieces. They have to be upwards of 100 pounds. The co-pilot chair has the electric foot assembly making it even more. It's also easy to mare the leather manipulating them in and out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck B 2004 Windsor Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 ?? Check out Bradd and Hall in Elkhart, Indiana. They have a good selection to choose from. They will install them for you. Chuck B 2004 Windsor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J A Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 13 hours ago, Jonbrooks said: So after inquiring about new seats to update the coach and finding out we are about 12 to 18 weeks out... decided I'll have to bang these things out myself. Wife- don't you think you should take some notes on this one? Me- it's OK it only works one way! Wife- how come whenever I push a button it keeps ejecting me out the door? Me- it's a Monaco design thing.... Full disclosure my shop deals with full restoration projects including upholstery. I've done multiple boat interior projects. Consider Truckers Seats. There are several RV furniture outlets in Elkhart, In. that have New take outs from coaches that the owners wanted something other than what was provided. Bradd & Hall is one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vito.a Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 The main issue with replacing Monaco diesel coach seats is the seat belts are built into the seat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 Yes the seat belts are integrated. Not suppose to go just lap belt but who's going to tell. I'm going to save several thousand bucks doing this job but was already behind at my shop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throgmartin Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 (edited) I am just about ready to have my seats done. I have been doing upholstery since I was 18. I am having my techs remove the seats and then having my buddy do the seats for me. My specialty before switching to awnings was vinyl seating and I have a 2,000 sq ft full blown sewing shop with over 20 K worth of industrial machines. But our shop is so overloaded with orders that I couldn't get a machine or table from my staff to sew on if I wanted to. Everything is in use. Besides, at my age I am not wrestling these seats around. My buddy is a true master and has plied his trade on custom seating for classic cars for 40 years. I couldn't come close to his abilities. We talked yesterday and I am having him cut down the center section foam and inlaying memory foam to make them more comfortable. I ordered all the fabric and went with a commercial grade heavy vinyl that is used in the medical field. The center insets will all be perforated so it will breath and reduce sweat. I was just with Brad from Bradd & Hall in January and we both agreed a lot of the ultra suede and ultra leather vinyl on the market is junk now days. One of our members had his seats done with it and he has to have them done again. They are only 5 years old and are already worn and cracked. Pretty sad to have a huge sewing shop but cannot access it. I have days I miss doing upholstery but not enough to screw around with these heavy seats. I have several friends who are marine upholsterers and they have quit doing couches on boats for the same reason. Age and too heavy. Sadly, true master upholsterers are getting hard to find and when you do find one they are booked out months on work. It is a dying trade unfortunately. One of my last projects: Speaking of upholstery............. This was my very last job doing RV upholstery work. A coach owner had a new windshield installed and the installer slit the the dash with a tool while working on the gasket. It took 2 RV technicians 2 days to remove the dash. I picked it up and went to work recovering it. I dropped it back off at the dealer when it was done and it took the tech's one full day to re-install it. I swore I would never do another dash again. Recovering a dash with all of the radius's and curves and making sure the dash had no wrinkles at the corner was time consuming. The glass company got presented a huge bill from the dealer and myself. Edited April 22, 2021 by throgmartin 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 22, 2021 Author Share Posted April 22, 2021 I've also been restoring cars boats and now motorhome coaches since I could hold a wrench. I'm basically a one man show with the entire shop to myself. I pick my projects and don't have to answer phones or have anyone checking if the paint has dried on there car ever half hour! Have all the commercial basics for automotive and boat upholstery work. Here is a classic Chrysler jet boat I have in the shop. Have completely rebuilt this boat. All new stringers and new metal flake paint work, and now onto the interior. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Haggard Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 (edited) Beautiful Congratulations 👏 We are enjoying the lake this week. But We have lost half the canvas and upholstery service businesses in the past 5 year's. Edited April 22, 2021 by John Haggard 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Baron Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 Looks Great it is a pleasure looking at Pictures MASTER at work George Schutz 2013 Monaco Monarch 33 SFD 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike H Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 (edited) On 4/20/2021 at 10:59 PM, JDCrow said: Awesome! Where did you get the material? We are in same boat, need to upgrade Well, as long as there seems to be reupholstery work in the air I’ll pass along our project. We decided our 2005 seats and sofa were starting to show their age. I was having a difficult time trying to find material that would match the carpet etc in the coach. I had first contacted WADE RV in Tampa and then a local upholstery shop in Melbourne but really wanted a better color match. I also wanted to be sure that the material that was being put on was of good quality and going to hold up so I contacted Bradd and Hall. They told me to go with Ultraleather so I picked out a bunch of colors and they sent me samples to see what would best match what we had. Our capt chairs have a slightly darker color insert in them so we had to pick out two different colors (Doe and Pelican). I decided to go with A&E Upholstery in Melbourne and they told me how much material I needed to order which was 12 yds for our ‘J’ Sofa and 11 yds for both Capt chairs of the Doe color (23 yds total) and 2 yds of the Pelican color for the Capt chair inserts. That came out to 25 yds total at $85/yd ($2,125). The labor is going to be $3,145 and take a week to complete so that will be $5,250 for the complete project. This is just for info for anyone else looking at getting their seats or sofa done. I also wanted to have the Monaco logo embroidered back into the headrest of the two chairs. I was told it was going to be around $150 to just get the artwork created. Not wanting to go that route I got a copy of the Monaco logo off line and had it digitized and then contacted another shop locally about the embroidery work. They quoted me $15 each to embroidery the logos. The upholstery shop cut me two pieces of the Doe material and I dropped it off with STARGAZER EMBROIDERY in Cocoa, Florida. They now have the Monaco logo on file in case anyone wants to have it embroidered onto anything. The owner is Nancy Dahike and she can be reached at (321) 576-2793. The original logo was approx 3” but we decided to increase it to 4”. She said she can resize it larger or smaller and can be done in pretty much any color you want. She even made up a small patch with one of the material samples from B&H with several color samples for us to choose from. If you have a jacket, hat, shirt or whatever you can send it to her to have the embroidery work done. She does have some shirts and hats in stock that she could make up for you. Having the artwork digitized for the sewing machines seems to be a big deal for some strange reason but now it’s been done and she has it in file. Edited April 22, 2021 by Mike H 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ray Davis Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 3 hours ago, throgmartin said: Good morning Chris, I'm curious about the dash and that door. Is it a Monaco and what's behind the door? Also, what are the black round things? It appears the whole panel might not be original with the odd placement of the little bit of carpet and that's where my dash HVAC air intake is. It does look pretty good though and would provide excellent access to the dreaded blower motor replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throgmartin Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 5 minutes ago, Ray Davis said: Good morning Chris, I'm curious about the dash and that door. Is it a Monaco and what's behind the door? Also, what are the black round things? It appears the whole panel might not be original with the odd placement of the little bit of carpet and that's where my dash HVAC air intake is. It does look pretty good though and would provide excellent access to the dreaded blower motor replacement. Behind the door is storage. The black circles are air con/heat vents. This was not a Monaco coach. I forgot the brand but remember what a royal PITA that dash was. I would never do another one for love or money. It took precision corner cuts, a lot of heat and stretching to get the vinyl perfect. Most of the dealers send dash recovering's back to the factory. Very few upholsterers do these kind of dash jobs. I was a dummy for doing it to be honest. I told the dealership don't call me I will call you next time. 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ray Davis Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 Thanks Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 22, 2021 Author Share Posted April 22, 2021 1 hour ago, Mike H said: Well, as long as there seems to be reupholstery work in the air I’ll pass along our project. We decided our 2005 seats and sofa were starting to show their age. I was having a difficult time trying to find material that would match the carpet etc in the coach. I had first contacted WADE RV in Tampa and then a local upholstery shop in Melbourne but really wanted a better color match. I also wanted to be sure that the material that was being put on was of good quality and going to hold up so I contacted Bradd and Hall. They told me to go with Ultraleather so I picked out a bunch of colors and they sent me samples to see what would best match what we had. Our capt chairs have a slightly darker color insert in them so we had to pick out two different colors (Doe and Pelican). I decided to go with A&E Upholstery in Melbourne and they told me how much material I needed to order which was 12 yds for our ‘J’ Sofa and 11 yds for both Capt chairs of the Doe color (23 yds total) and 2 yds of the Pelican color for the Capt chair inserts. That came out to 25 yds total at $85/yd ($2,125). The labor is going to be $3,145 and take a week to complete so that will be $5,250 for the complete project. This is just for info for anyone else looking at getting their seats or sofa done. I also wanted to have the Monaco logo embroidered back into the headrest of the two chairs. I was told it was going to be around $150 to just get the artwork created. Not wanting to go that route I got a copy of the Monaco logo off line and had it digitized and then contacted another shop locally about the embroidery work. They quoted me $15 each to embroidery the logos. The upholstery shop cut me two pieces of the Doe material and I dropped it off with STARGAZER EMBROIDERY in Cocoa, Florida. They now have the Monaco logo on file in case anyone wants to have it embroidered onto anything. The owner is Nancy Dahike and she can be reached at (321) 576-2793. The original logo was approx 3” but we decided to increase it to 4”. She said she can resize it larger or smaller and can be done in pretty much any color you want. She even made up a small patch with one of the material samples from B&H with several color samples for us to choose from. If you have a jacket, hat, shirt or whatever you can send it to her to have the embroidery work done. She does have some shirts and hats in stock that she could make up for you. Having the artwork digitized for the sewing machines seems to be a big deal for some strange reason but now it’s been done and she has it in file. I have to recreate that sew file. Would they be will to email that sew file. You paid for the digitization and really own that file. We could work something out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 22, 2021 Author Share Posted April 22, 2021 Got the seat material off the hog ringed frame. The only part I will do is replace the sitting plate. The rest of the seats are great. These are seats with all the bells and whistles. The black pad is a heat pad. Meanwhile to move the coach around. Kind a like tag axle warning. Do not exceed 5 MPH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hypoxia Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 What would it take to add seat ventilation like my cars and trucks have? I would use it frequently, I rarely use heat. I would like to change my seats to integrated seatbelts and footrest as those were removed when the air ride was added to the seats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 22, 2021 Author Share Posted April 22, 2021 Yeah like I drive my coach in the winter all the time right? It would take a total fab shop to add ventilation to seats. That's all I do here....fabrication the good news is the integrated seat belts would be doable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike H Posted April 23, 2021 Share Posted April 23, 2021 20 hours ago, Jonbrooks said: I have to recreate that sew file. Would they be will to email that sew file. You paid for the digitization and really own that file. We could work something out? Jon, I can email you the digitized vector files I sent to her. I'll see if I can figure out how to send you a PM from here. 19 hours ago, Jonbrooks said: Got the seat material off the hog ringed frame. The only part I will do is replace the sitting plate. The rest of the seats are great. These are seats with all the bells and whistles. The black pad is a heat pad. Meanwhile to move the coach around. Kind a like tag axle warning. Do not exceed 5 MPH Sure glad I'm not the only crazy person around LOL. I'm having to do the same thing. I don't want to leave out coach sitting at the upholstery shop for a week so I'll be driving it about 5 - 7 miles back to our storage facility that way. Hope I don't get pulled over for not wearing a seat belt 😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 23, 2021 Author Share Posted April 23, 2021 Marks are strategically place every few inches on all plates prior to ripping seems apart. Then these marks will transfer to new material which assures exact pattern transfer and guards against puckering of material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 24, 2021 Author Share Posted April 24, 2021 Here is the individual plates ready to transfer to new material. All those check marks will be transferred to new material. The long strips with the white foam will be sewn and become the piping that goes around bottom seat plate edges Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonbrooks Posted April 25, 2021 Author Share Posted April 25, 2021 Here is the seat bottom plate for drivers seat completed. The black material is a sew foam which I initially hold in place with contact adhesive and sew into the seat as I go. Trying to make Villa proud...lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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