DIY Armrest Project

[ATF]

So rather than shelling out the cold hard cash on the LeatherZ I'm making my own. I've gotta run so I'll spare the details. Here is how far I got until I realized my hinge sucks.

Picture 1: Grabbed a bottle of water, cause it is fkin hot out. Note the large piece of 1/4" Masonite (aka hardboard)
Picture 2: Jig saw with a coarse saw bit (note the template I made in the corner)
Picture 3: I traced my template to the Masonite and made some rough cuts.
Picture 4: I sanded the Masonite down with 100 grit sand paper and a sanding block, put the template over it to see how close I was to my original sizes.
Picture 5: Sanded and looking nice, no template

[ATF]

by the way, the last picture is comic relief after being pissed about the hinge. "That's what she said!"

Picture 1: The curve caused a problem for the sanding block and I was tempted to bust the dremel out, but I just decided to sand it freehand.
Picture 2: Close up of the corner, rounding the edges so it doesn't dig into the vinyl.
Picture 3: How far the arm rest will extend
Picture 4: The mounting location I have picked out.
Picture 5: That's what she said.

[Will'sBimmer]

lol at what she said. haha wht are you going to use for padding?

[larryn]

I'm wondering the same thing, and what matching material you were able to track down for the covering.

[ATF]

A little bit of narration has been added to the original post.

Originally Posted by Will'sBeamer

lol at what she said. haha wht are you going to use for padding?

I picked up this stuff called NU-Foam, made by poly-fil. www.poly-fil.com they're actually based nearby. However I got it at Wal-Mart because all the little arts and fabric stores have been going out of business due to big name stores lately.

The fabric I also picked up at Wal-Mart, it was like $3.77 a yard. I got two yards, and I shouldn't have, i could probably wrap my whole dash in the stuff for $7. It's a Black Vinyl Leather, so it's got the leather texture and feel to it, but it's indeed vinyl. So I suppose the $3.77 is for a square yard, and I managed to buy 2 square yards.

They didn't have any light gray, which is what I was initially there for (to cover my A-pillars, which are still bare). I settled for black because the cup holder is black. There aren't any plans for reupholstering my whole interior and dying parts to convert my interior to black, but I know where to go if I need black vinyl

Oh yeah, so still to come.

I'm going to head to the hardware store after I get my suspension upgrade done. Grab a handful of bolts, a new hinge, some nuts and some washers to complete the install. I'm going to drill the hardboard, fit some bolts through and tighten the nuts on the bottom of the hinge/hardboard so they dont dig into the padding/vinyl/your arm. Then I plan on drilling holes into the outer side on the back cup holder unit, and placing the washers and nuts on the underside of the cup holder unit. If I can't find anything to fit in that little opening on the underside, I'll resort to drilling all the way through and just bolting it from the inside of the little storage cubby that I never use.

After all the hardware is figured out, I'm going to simply cut the vinyl out. Cut the padding. Maybe add a little spray adhesive to the padding to keep it in place, set it on the vinyl and just stretch it over the hardboard and staple it down. I'm not going to get fancy with any stitching because well, I cant! It'd be cool to get something embroidered though, if had some kind of running theme or style going. I'll probably get some kind of posterboard/cardboard for the bottom of the armrest to hide the staples.

My rough dimensions of the arm rest: 7" wide, 10" long on the right, 9" long on the left, ~4" wide for the piece that sticks out past the e-brake. I used the bottom of a can of spray paint to do my rounded edges on the template.

[ATF]

By the way, the hardboard/masonite is usually what pegboards are made out of. A more common item you might have encountered, I believe hardboard is used for some clipboards.

[ATF]

Update.

I got a new hinge, I got some new hardware. Drilled holes for mounting these suckers together. Fits great. Unfortunately Masonite is HARD! I tried to begin the wrapping process with no success. I busted out the heavy staple gun, and it does the trick, unfortunately 1/2" Staples into a 1/4" board doesn't work (and it only puts the 1/2" Staples in about 1/8"). So sometime soon I will go on a shopping trip to hunt down 1/8" staples to finish off the job and post my results!

[ATF]

Ok, got new staples, and got this puppy wrapped and installed. I suppose I could have trimmed the vinyl a little more efficiently but it will suffice for me. I also plan on putting some kind of thin cover on the underside so I don't see the ugliness I couldn't pull it as tight at the hinge, because it kept getting in the way. The rear looks a little sloppy in the photo, but when you're looking at it in person you don't really notice it much.

[ATF]

Also for my navigation purposes, I made a temporary laptop stand to hold my laptop/gps. I just need to cut out another piece of Masonite and lay it horizontally on top of that flange, and probably some Velcro to hold the laptop steady.

I didn't want to drill/screw into the floorpan, the seat mounting bolt wasn't long enough to mount to there and I didn't want to put holes into the console, so wedging a piece of masonite and mounting a flange to there keeps it nice and tight.

[Mallard]

nice effort.

but for the amount of time you took to make it good, you could just have well cut the excess vinyl off and stapled it clean, then took a fresh peice of vinyl to make an "underlay" for the stapled side.

seems a shame that u only half finnished it dude, when it has the potential to be really good

[col.hapablap]

dude no.... no... and the start looked so promising that i was real curious how this would turn out.

unwrap that thing asap and re-do the fabric. get some dense foam, shave it down to shape, and place the fabric at least in some sort of organized fashion.

[ATF]

It's really not as bad as it looks. It's hard to pull the vinyl down tight, otherwise it will stretch or tear and then look really bad. Real leather would be ideal for this situation, but my pockets aren't that deep. The indent for the e-brake poses a small problem because I cant keep enough tension to keep it wrapped nicely. I'll pull it off tomorrow and trim the vinyl and see if I can get it better.

[Will'sBimmer]

dense foam may help keep a shape better than the stuffing you are using for padding. by the way what are you using for padding??

[ATF]

In an earlier reply I mentioned I was using Nu-Foam from WalMart. It's a dense, but not necessarily rigid foam. I didn't really want that "high top" look that the LeatherZ has. However from the first time that I wrapped it, to the second. I agree the first time was pretty ****ty compared to now. I like this one a lot better. However the spray adhesive I used, and I'm guessing a combination of the heat inside the car, made the bottom piece look ugly. I may get a chance to fix it.

[M3_KILL3R]

Looks MUCH better good job atf!! +1