Using the holiday break to clean and reorganize. Let a year of busy turn the area into a disaster area. Putting up more vertical storage for sew foam and other supplies. Would be the first time I've set aside time to clean up though

The pleats are made from the foam itself. I would suggest steam and/or adhesive remover. 3m comes to mind as a good one to use. Have done plenty of the old blazers that way. Dont tear it out or you will lose the design.

I'm not sure at the moment, the customer only brought it by for an estimate. Thanks for the tips everyone.

thanks for the heads up, I actually use 92 for automotive and marine. I figured if it was good enough for marine it's good for automotive.

Recently started using the Kai shears. As stated they are very sharp. Keyston Bros are who I take them to when I need them sharpened.

I normally use typar as a replacement. I get it from Keyston. Where did you get the plastic style? Run into a few chevys with the snaps that I've been fortunate enough to salvage.

Self taught here, but I learned to do it the way Wayne described. I put pins in the panels and make my pattern that way, especially for the custom jobs I get from time to time.

Have dealt with my fair share. I just had a customer last week back up to one of the bays with two seats to repair. With a shop full, he tried to haggle with me on time and cost. I explain that I have other customers who have called and scheduled their time which allows me to take the time and attention the work requires. It usually works out but I still get a few that want to leave it with me any way. So long as I don't get the customer who thinks he\she is God's gift to mankind, I usually let them know when I can schedule them and it usually works out. You can always hit them with storage fees if they're too pushy.

I am attempting to keep up with instagram but half the time I forget to take the before and after pictures. I'm sure some can attest to when you've seen one patch job you've seen them all. Everyone wants to see the "cool" stuff and I don't get those often. I'm trying to keep up with updating my account, but the trees are usually bigger than the forest in my case. Word of mouth keeps me busy for the most part and where I am, it's good to know how to do more than one thing when it comes to cars.

I use a cheap siphon gun with a 1.8 tip, has lasted for years. From time to time the tip gets cleaned with the 3m adhesive remover. Even after sitting for awhile it stay sprays the same.