Auto Upholstery Bay Area - How To Fix A Cigarette Burn In A Cloth Car Seat - Cooks Upholstery & Classic Restoration

 

 

 

 

 

Cigarette burns in your car seat can look tacky. When you turn the vehicle in at the end of a lease, the leasing agent can actually charge a fee for cigarette burn repairs. Fixing cigarette burns in a cloth seat is much easier than doing the repair on leather upholstery. If the seat fabric has a pattern, the job can be a little more difficult than with a standard one-color fabric.

Scrape the area around the burn to remove the "crust" or hardened material at the edges. Use a razor blade to scrape, being careful not to rip the fabric.

Scrape a handful of fibers or tufts of material from the rear bottom of the seat, if you have one-color fabric. If the fabric is patterned, cut a very small sample of the material from the beneath the front of the seat. If the patterned material only extends to the front piping, cut your very small portion of material from the bottom of the headrest, where the patterns usually extend to. Only cut enough material to match the size of the burn hole.

Apply a small amount of thick carpet glue or epoxy onto the tip of a flat-head screwdriver. Insert the tip of the screwdriver into the center of the burn hole. Add more adhesive until the hole is almost completely filled with the glue. Thicker glue will adhere better than Super Glue-style glue, because it does not absorb into the seat padding like thin glue.

Drop the fibers or scrapings directly into the hole if you have one-color upholstery. With a pattern, match the sample pattern piece you cut to the hole, and trim the piece to fit as close to the shape of the hole as possible. Do not press the upholstery fibers or pattern cut-out into the hole. Tamp the material very gently with your finger tip, as this will mesh the fibers or fabric cut-out with the hole.

Allow the glue or epoxy to dry for the time stated on the bottle for "full curing time." Repeat Steps 1 through 4 to repair any other cigarette burns you may have in your cloth seats. The fiber scraping repair method also works for burn holes in the carpet, if you take the scrapings from beneath the seats.

You can use a household hair dryer to help the cure time of the glue. Heat the glue up for one or two minutes with a hair dryer. This will also allow the glue to bond with both the seat and the patch materials better. For greater results, do not attempt this project in temperatures below 60 degrees.

Most carpet glues and epoxies are extremely flammable. Keep this project away from flame, spark, static electrical charge, and cigarette smoking

Source: http://hondaautomobilesboat.danielcadams.com/how-to-fix-a-cigarette-burn-in-a-cloth-car-seat/
By Tim Petruccio

Auto Upholstery Bay Area - How to Get Rid of Mold in Your Car or Automobile - Cooks Upholstery & Classic Restoration

 

 

Mold in the automobile is a top concern for motorist. The mold from your car may have infected your car's ventilation system which can blow mold spores throughout your entire automobile. Often this can lead to severe mold allergies and other mold health related problems. IDENTIFY THE SOURCE OF THE MOLD First thing to do is to find out why you have mold in the first place. Sometimes weather seals and gaskets on a car's door and windows can erode over time and allow moisture or water into the car. This is very c ommon in older antique or restored vehicles, or vehicles allowed to sit for long periods of time. The other common area for mold infestation is the car's ventilation system generally caused by blocked or clogged water lines from the car's condenser unit. How to remediate the most common situations: MOLD IN THE CAR CAUSED BY A LEAK First fix the leak that caused the mold. Once the leak has been repaired, then you can treat the area withOxy-Mold MX-500 fungicide. You can use a steam cleaner such as a "Bissel" with a fungicide registered with EPA for this application injected into the carpet and then use the suction to remove the excess water. Some steam cleaners use a shampoo concentrate pulled directly via a hose into the unit, others use pre-mixed shampoo. Depending on which type of cleaner you have will determine if you use the fungicide without dilution or with dilution. Treat as mentioned above and allow this to dry, then treat one more time. In general this should correct the mold problem. Some auto carpets may still have to be removed or replaced under severe mold conditions. Some seats may also have to be treated with product if they are cloth. Always do a small test spot on leathers before full-application. MOLD IN THE AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM Fix the problem that caused mold in the A/C system first. Sometime the problem can not be identified, but a mold smell emanates from the A/C system. Often an air conditioning drainage line is clogged and can easily be fixed by you or an experienced auto mechanic. Once this or other air conditioning water problems have been fixed then you can "fog" the ventilation system by using a paint sprayer and a fungicide registered with EPA for this application spraying it into the car's air intake for the air condition system which is generally on the engine side of the car. Since every car is built differently you will have to do some investigating to find this intake. Once you have located it remove any filter and then you can spray the fungicide into the intake while the A/C blower is on full-blast. This will allow fungicide to be pulled into the car's vent ducting system and kill the mold and mold spores present in the car. This may have to be done several times and in some cases have to be done on a maintenance type basis. I CAN'T IDENTIFY THE SOURCE OF THE MOLD In this case you can shampoo all of the rugs and car seats (if they are cloth) with the fungicide using a steam cleaning machine and fog the air condition system as mentioned above. This may have to be done a several times or on a maintenance basis in severe cases. By: Jim Dobbins, Sr. Mold Remediation Specialist http://www.naturesinnovation.com/mold_in_automobile.htm