1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

I took on the task of reupholstering the seats and cushions on my 1989 capri 1950. It turned out not to be as bad as I thought. Bought a 17$ air stapler (already had the compressor). Bought some SS staples. Bought some leftover marine vinyl for about 50$ and then some misc supplies.

Reupholstered for < 100$ and probably a total of 40 hours of work. Its not all fancy and professional looking but for this old of a boat works for me.

I was originally using duct tape but the glue on the tape was leeching through onto the skin of the passengers.

Now only if I could get the chalky color out of the gel coat. Anyone have success with this before and can recommend any products?

If anyone has questions or is interested in doing this themselves let me know. I definitely have some tips. No sewing involved you can do fancy seams with just the staples and some "rolls".

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

Oh yeah and I also added a 4 speaker cd player too.. fun

First pair of speakers you can see in the stock position.
Second pair I made custom boxes with some length of cable and there is one each under the passenger and captain dashboards. I can move the second pair where ever we need music or just leave them there.

And will soon be adding a depth finder as well.

Total investment into the boat < $1500 including what I paid for it and a repair to the distributor. Runs like a champ.

But like I said if anyone has a proven product that can take care of the oxidized gel coat I'm all ears.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

A cleaning wax and electric buffer should help with the paint.

Nice job on the reuphostry, I had to do the same thing on my old bayliner. Worst part is if you decide to do the bow pads. You need a double jointed midget to get the screws out.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

I left those until the end. I wasn't caring about saving the patterns so I took a razor blade and cut the crap out of them to find the external screws. As for the pads on the dash it turned out to only be the side screws that needed to be unscrewed. The bow facing pads were drilled from the outside.

It appears that each of these was a custom job back in the day. I didn't hide the new screws - just got finishing washers. I didn't want to invest all that much time and it still came out clean looking.

the bow pads though did end up taking about 25% of the installation time and 50% of the sweat lost.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

Good job! use a high speed buffer/polisher with med to heavy rubbing compound first use a wool pad doing small sections at a time until you see it shine then use a foam pad then hand wax it, it worked great on my boat it takes some time good luck!

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

That is $100 well spent!

There are many threads about rejuvenating gelcoat. Just do a search in the Boat Topics and Questions area.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

looks good! im in the process of redoing my whole interior as well. But i had to redo the original seats and i did it in the factory pattern so it has taken a loooong time lol. mine is all tucked, no sewing except for the seats. just like yours, its no high end job but it is waaay better than bare wood like before. heres a few pics of mine:



side panels before:



side panels after:

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

Thats a sweet job redone - I didn't take the time to reproduce all the details but it looks like it paid off for you. Was this your first reupholster job? I wish I could do it all over with the experience I have from doing it this time. (And I was making my own "rolls" to make the seems look nice and hide the staples. Turns out they actually sell a strip/rib with a staple indentation line in it for doing the same thing - go figure I find that out after I am done.)

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

sph130 said:

Thats a sweet job redone - I didn't take the time to reproduce all the details but it looks like it paid off for you. Was this your first reupholster job? I wish I could do it all over with the experience I have from doing it this time. (And I was making my own "rolls" to make the seems look nice and hide the staples. Turns out they actually sell a strip/rib with a staple indentation line in it for doing the same thing - go figure I find that out after I am done.)

Click to expand...

dude i found out about that strip afterwards also. i really coulda used them. Yep, first upholstery job. The seat vinyl was cut and sewn by my stepmother, shes a seamstress. but it still took her hours and hours to get them just about right. I just wanted something decent looking with some colors that i liked but i kept the pattern similar to the originals. its not perfect, but its 10x better than what we had.
I still have to redo the bow seats and the engine cover/stern seating area yet. I actually bought a sewing machine for some of that, but i have to learn how to use it.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

redone4x4 said:

dude i found out about that strip afterwards also. i really coulda used them. Yep, first upholstery job. The seat vinyl was cut and sewn by my stepmother, shes a seamstress. but it still took her hours and hours to get them just about right. I just wanted something decent looking with some colors that i liked but i kept the pattern similar to the originals. its not perfect, but its 10x better than what we had.
I still have to redo the bow seats and the engine cover/stern seating area yet. I actually bought a sewing machine for some of that, but i have to learn how to use it.

Click to expand...

Just incase your bow seats are like mine the back side against the console cushions and pads wrap around. And you have bolts under the dashboars that you have to unscrew. I didn't know this until i unscrewed them all but only the bolts/nuts on the middle pads between the consoles need to be unscrewed. The front facing backs of the seats are screwed in through seams like the rest of the seating. In case this saves you the hassle that I went through unscrewing and screwing in.

Re: 1989 Bayliner Capri 1950 Reupholster

Looks good.. Ours is an 1989 model too interior is good though still as it has always been covered or indoors but of course some of the seams have had some stress. I thought about a CD but hell, I just tune my radio to my ipod and its great no hauling cds around in a boat. I could use some nicer speakers tho.

PS I need a boat platform some fat butt broke mine and didnt tell us until we went to take the boat out (son borrowed it and one of his friends broke it)