Leather Door Pocket Covers
 

Today I decided to do a project I saw online. Cover the platic door pocket covers in leather. I wanted to see if I could do the whole project under $25 bucks.

I figured while my car is still at the paint shop, I would get this done.

http://986forum.com/forums/show-tell-gallery/43078-1998-boxster-project-complete-restoration.html

I already had the 3M Spray Adhesive and I got the white padding from my wife's stock of material. All I needed was the leather. I made some calls to local fabric stores and had no luck finding any leather sources.

So instead, I went to the local Good-Will and bought a black leather jacket for $25 bucks. There were tons to choose from too.

Here is the Leather Jacket I bought from Good-Will for $25.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364231.jpg

I cut off each of the sleeves. Then cut out a piece of leather for the plastic pocket cover. I left a boarder of about 1" extra material.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364268.jpg

I did the same thing for the padding material. I think my wife said its called batting.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364306.jpg

With the door pockets removed, and the hinges covered with painter's tape. I sprayed the top surface of the pocket and the underside of the batting and let it air dry from about 20 seconds. I then placed the batting onto the top surface of the pocket door and smoothed it over the surface. Once smoothed out, I used scissors to cut away the excess batting material.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364391.jpg


http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364426.jpg


Next I applied the 3M Adhesive Spray to the back of the leather and exposed surfase of the batting now stuck on the plastic cover. Again, I let it air dry for 20 seconds and applied the leather to the batting. It's important to apply the leather starting from the center so that you can lay it out smoothly.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364464.jpg

I then cut away the excess leather and left a border of about 1/4" to 1/2" to wrap over the edge of the pocket door. Around the sharper corners of the door, you need to cut small slits so the leather will lay flat. Careful not to cut the slits to far or they will show.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364511.jpg

Here is the first door complete next to the plastic one yet to be done. Nice improvement over the cheap plastic.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364542.jpg


Here is the new leather covered pocket door installed on the door panel. Total job took about 30 mins per door.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364582.jpg


http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362364605.jpg

Looks great. The leather jacket was a clutch idea.

That's my kind of ingenuity ;)

Excellent job!

Great job. I just bought a 2 square foot piece of leather off of eBay for $15 delivered. The seller is bobkitchener.

What does the batting do? Can you just put the leather directly over the plastic?

A 1 Upholstery Leather Piece Cowhide Black Lt WT 2 SF | eBay

Can you post some pix of the underside and how it looks? I've not done this mod because I didn't want the backside to look ugly and I'd like to see how yours looks...

Hi Chuck,

Of course you can put the leather directly on the plastic :-)

But I chose to use the batting for the arm rests to give it some cushion. That's what's it for. You could also use 1/8 foam, like auto upholstery shops use. I was going to do that, but since I had the batting already, I chose it instead.

Sure, here is a pic of the bottom of the pocket door. I may cover the bottom with leather too - what do you think?

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362420016.jpg

Since I have so much leather left from the jacket I thought I would attempt to cover the driver's side mirror cover. At first I did not think it could be done with just one piece of leather. Its got a lot of corners to it. But low and behold, I was able to do it. There was just one fold on the bottom that had to be done.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362420169.jpg

Here you can see just one fold I had to make in order for it to work.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362420194.jpg

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1362420233.jpg

Great job! Also +1 on the thrift store jacket, never would have thought of that. Mine are done in alcantara, which is also a good look and easy to clean.

Adding Leather to Underside of Pockets
 

So, I decided to finish off the Door Pocket Covers by covering their undersides with leather as well.

For any of you who want to do this, I posted a template I created for the pattern.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0CefhQNYYUcbW9ueC1vemFEM1k/edit?usp=sharing

Here are the pics of the process.

The Pattern I Created For You All (created after I cut a piece of leather to shape)
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363313879.jpg

I traced the pattern onto the batting (optional)
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363313967.jpg

Was easier to attach the two pieces of leather together ant cut at same time.
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363314042.jpg

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363314283.jpg

Here are both pieces of leather ready for install.
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363314320.jpg

Here are the bottoms of the pocket covers with the leather installed (with optional batting underneath).
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1363314379.jpg

Ingenuity at its best! Looks great!

I suppose all the XXXL jackets will be gone from the thrift stores due to this thread ; )

very nice
 

Great idea and good job. My pocket doors are quite scratched up and dirty. This project would do wonders. It's truly the little things, is it not. Now, if only I can find an old leather jacket . . .

How much magnification does the template need in order to have it be the actually size required? Obviously what printed out was undersized to accurately fit the armrest. Can you throw me a bone and give this newb the details please

Well since he's in the US, my superior powers of deduction tell me it's probably 8 1/2" tall, since that is standard paper size. Looks like he taped two together, so just scale it to that height preserving the aspect ratio, and you'll probably be fine...

Yeah, I had that pretty well covered on the size of the paper used, but not really addressing my question. You are correct, the scale is off, and significantly smaller than actual armrest size. However I came up with a better solution, I ordered fabricated leather pieces for armrests, dash speedo cover and center console armrest from Topgaiter on ebay. These items come with matching stitch colors for your interior, they come out of UK and are priced well. Two weeks from now, I'll have them in my hot little hands and ready to install.

which 3M adhesive do you use for this application, 77, 90, General Purpose? Any recommendations?

Tossed look nice, you'll have to let us know how you like them...

Hi,

The template should print the correct size at 100% zoom.

Denied:barf:

That little spring on the Door storage compartment is a ******************** to put back on, I tried to reinstall for about hour and a half, finally gave up for today and take another whack at it tomorrow. Any suggestions?:ah:

Put the spring on the door with a dummy hinge pin that will get pushed out when you push in the actual hinge pin. The dummy pin will hold the spring in place while you are trying to line up the holes in the arm rest and the door.