Restitch Windows

[Typhus Concussion]

Brad, I looked at many of these options and it depends on what how patient you can be to use the hand stitching units. For my doors, I eventually found a car shop that would it. I checked several marine fabric shops and many upholstery shops before I found one that would take on the job. The door stitching came out good, but it was take in finding someone who you do it.

 

[Bulldogger]

I guess I am fortunate, or just very patient. I simply bought a glover's needle and some outdoor heavy nylon thread at the local fabric store and hand stitched my surplus door's window zippers back in by hand using the original holes. Just go one hole at a time. Once you get in the habit, and into a rhythm, it moves along well enough.

It takes about 35-45m per window, but luckily I only had two to do. Front doors of course, the harder ones to get new for a low price.

I thought of using my Speedy-Stitch, I have two, but it is more aggressive in terms of needle size as someone already observed. This made me worry that I'd get off track and end up with a badly wrinkled zipper. I resigned myself to hand stitching through the old original holes, but then it wasn't as tedious/hard as I thought it would be once I got going. Every few stitches I backtracked a stitch to double up the thread. It's holding fine 8 months now.

I certainly would have liked to be able to use a machine, but it's usually just me and that is a two person job to wrangle those doors around. I have a friend who retired from the custom cycle business years ago. He has an old professional long-reach sewing machine for doing bike seats. When he moves to his retirement home in SC (from MD), I am going to try to talk him out of moving that machine. (And out of several other items from his ample warehouse of antique cycle stuff...)

Bulldogger

 

[Gear Report]

I've made a fair amount of outdoor gear using a "thread injector" (if making a dress the same machine would be called a "sewing machine").
I didn't see anyone mention that you really need to use heavy duty polyester thread. Even better if you can find one that is UV treated. Typical cotton or nylon thread, will break down far too quickly in the sun. Using heavy nylon will buy you a little time, but it will still fail too quickly. This job is just enough of a PITA that you will want to use the right thread so you don't have to do it twice.
I use something like this: http://amzn.to/2hrO4aS

 

[ari]

I did 1 window awhile back with a large needle and 100lb spiderwire fishing line. Still holding strong

 

[papakb]

I looked into having my doors restitched about 2 years ago here in the San Jose area and the 2 shops I found that were willing to do it each wanted $150 per door to do the job. With new soft doors selling for less than that I just bought some new doors. Now that the price and availability of doors has changed I pulled out the Harbor Freight awl I've had for years and spent a couple of hours restitching some of the spare doors I had in stock. It's pretty easy to do and if you rub some beeswax into the stitching afterwards you don't get any seepage through it. The military used to have beeswax crayons that were part of tentage repair kits and thats what I used, Who knows how old that stuff was but it worked fine.

Kurt

 

[Brad Z]

I ended up picking up a Harbor Freight awl and ordered some nylon thread off Amazon. I'll be sure to report back on my findings.

 

[camoyj7]

If anyone in Northern IL needs windows stitched up Frank at Aquaholics Canvas & Upholstery did a nice job on mine. 25819 W Grass Lake Rd, 60002 Antioch