"In this entry, we get to work re-assembling the puzzle by creating templates for every single section of the original BMW Performance cover."
- Matt

What's a "patron" anyway?

In the upholstery world, the little things add up extremely fast. It's why so few offer a complete recreation of BMW Performance seats. 

This entry documents work that spanned two evenings at Recovered Workshop that felt like two weeks. In total, this section of the BMW Performance seat recreation process accounted for 22 man hours.  

These man hours will "subsidized" in the upcoming bespoke seat program. In short, you won't be paying for it, whereas any new upholsterer taking on this as a one time project will have to bill you for those hours.

The process.

Patrons are templates that recreate the shapes of the original cover. They will be the basis on which every other seats will be created. Good ol' cardboard is used. It's stiff enough for our usage and doesn't deform over time.

It brings you back to your elementary school art classes. Bring out the cardboard, scissors, colouring pen and cameras (!).

"Sur ton 31"

A poorly translated French expression meaning to "get well dressed". The BMW seat has more sections than a standard Recaro CS seat. It's one of a few logical reasons that justifies the premium. 

The BMW Performance cover is made up of 31 individual sections. The sections were laid flat and the outlines are penned.

We sorted through the covers by using the letter we previously marked each section of a specific section. In this case V was used for the ribbed middle sections. 

Each template is named, numbered, assigned to a section and has the original material that were utilized by Recaro noted on the inner, and outer section of the cover. The markings we created on the original covers are for alignment purposes with our templates. 

It's repetitive work that requires Visual-Space perception skills to always keep in mind the interconnection of each section that makes up the cover.

If you have any doubt you've missed a detail, you start over. If you don't, you run the risk of only knowing when you have a complete cover stitched up, and try to fit it to the seat. Welcome to saggy covers. 

The markings must always match. The templates truly are carbon copies of the annotated original covers. You'll notice the templates are larger than the original sections. We'll explain why when we get to upholstery work. 

At times, it feels like they're all the same, and you often lose sight of the big picture. Seats are usually symmetric in design. If you do one section, you'll usually have a mirror'ed section. 

They aren't actually all the same. Not all sections have underside padding "pas de padding". Once we got to the final, upper sections, we saw the finish line. The 2x top sections of the seat are unique and singular with the BMW Performance embroidery. 

We're finally done with the tear down. 

Up next: the problem is choice. 

It's a detailed chat about leathers, fabrics, suedes, threads and undersides.