Leather Welding

So, the driver's seat in the F150 had a worn fatigue crack on the left side from years of in and out. It was not the seam that failed, but actually a natural wrinkle in the leather that had weakened and cracked through. (Stupid cow.) In any case, here's what I started with:



I picked up a fairly fine needle set and some tough upholstery thread at WalMart and stared at it awhile to figure out what my next steps would be.

I haven't done much sewing of material under tension, but the longer I looked the more I thought, what if I could stitch weld it like you do long metal seams so it doesn't warp? Maybe that would hold it closed enough to allow for an overlay of stitches from one end to the other.

So I started tack-stiching it is a few spots:



That seemed (heh.) like it was working so I continued tacking:



I then started at the front and ran stitches over the whole thing all the way to the back. I think it turned out pretty well considering a new lower leather piece for this seat that wouldn't match the style of the original costs nearly $200.



Now to clean the exposed carpet and reinstall the seat.