I just finished mine from J-F Customs on Ebay. Great quality and responsiveness. I thought it would go easier but after it’s all done I’m satisfied with it. FWIW, I’ve used 2 different shoemaker’s contact cement for this work, Petronio’s and Barge. Barge is great to work with and after curing for a day is significantly stronger than any other Contact cement I’ve ever used. One other thing is if you’ve never done this kind of work before, watch videos on Youtube from a wonderful leather craftsman named CECHAFLO. He has lessons online as well. If you watch his long video where he covers a knee panel with blue leather you will have all the info you need. I’ve already watched it twice but when I had some trouble with this one I watched it again and I’m glad I did.

 

Was the leather pliable? How thick is their cut? Were the lines they cut into it insufficient to stretch the material? Was aligning the threads with the console lines not attainable?

I have been considering doing this on my DD console. It looks a worthy change, and would match work I have already done on my arm rest - though I would want to redo that to have matching grain. It looks as though perhaps I will want to do this first on a spare console to be certain it would meet my expectation. Or do that and then source my own material to make my own cover. I have made holsters for knives and owb carry, as well as my arm rest cover currently, but have not yet ventured to do something so 3D complex as the center column.

 

Tusc, as you can see I ordered perforated leather to go with the rest of my trim. It was very pliable, forgiving and stretchable. the stitching is quite nice. My pic below will show what I’m about to describe. My initial instinct was to do the concave (Ashtray) area first and work my way out from there. I consulted with the vendor and they said there were a number of approaches. Because I did not want any of the orange stitching to be obstructed by my shift boot or cupholder door, I started from the left, moved right and then tried to deal with the concave. That resulted in some misalignment and bunching in the concave area. I had to pull some of what I had done, but should have been more disciplined like I’ve seen Cechaflo do with his very gradual gluing procedures. I thought I had it licked, and had the left side where I wanted and found bunching again. As I was applying the area around the keyhole and air sensor I got worried that I would not have enough material to wrap around. Turns out that was not the case, but it ended up skewing the stitching more to the left than I anticipated. At that point, I ended up cutting the concave area at the left side of the right seam. That solved that problem, but then, as I slowly attached the leather to the thin cross pieces, I didn’t pull it enough to have the right stitches line up as I wanted, but some of the previous sections were over a day of glue curing and I didn’t want to rip the leather. Barge glue holds that well. The other reason I didn’t stretch the center section was because I wanted enough flex for the 8 inside corners, which I’ve dealt with 8 times previously. I knew what was coming. It was then that I watched Cechaflo’s knee panel install and those corners all went well.
Hope I didn’t write too much and I HATE “admitting’ that the final result was not as good as I hoped, but I would gladly use this product again. The mistakes were mine, and if I did it again, I would go with MUCH smaller glue sections, and I would do the concave section first. The product itself was the nicest leather I’ve ever worked with.

 

It is a step beyond my experience. The complexities you have overcome are exactly why I never went ahead and did more on my own with the car in the past. I'd say you have done well, especially hearing the greater detail you offered. It is encouraging me to consider it as a Fall project once I get the new Z on its feet. Have you given thought to doing the dash?

 

Tusc, yes I was thinking of the dash, A-pillars and halo, but this one is not lined up to where the stitching on the dash will be, so I either have to Re-do this one, which will probably not work out so I would probably buy the Metra unit and start over. I’ve seen mention that removing the dash pad is not as intimidating as it looks, but this was a lot of work, which I expected. In fact the fit around the head unit is too tight on one side so the auto-tilt feature won’t work.

 

I can vouch the pulling the dash pad, or even the dash, are not hard. And too bad the pieces can't be managed without having to stitch another section in as they do. That would alleviate the issues.

 

Finally finished, made adjustments to allow the radio tilt feature to work.

 

I ha mine done at ca. custom in Indio,ca.Ithink it was around $200.00.had stitching done in the color of the car. they did a great job.I would think any good shop would be able to do the job.

 

Some nice looking leather covered dash/console pieces posted here. Not many well known vendors out there that do the work anymore. Hope you can find someone that still does it and the work is not cost prohibitive.

 

I had checked a few times with a local shop who does beautiful work, but his prices are not so beautiful

 

A shop near me quoted 650. Just to do the Metra bezel and nothing else.

 

that’s what I would expect from the guy here.