I may have some spare time this winter and have some seat skins coming from XT Innovations, and was wondering how hard is it to do a professional job, or should I just leave it to the pros? What tools are needed? From what I can tell a steamer and gnarly stapplegun is most of it.

I think there are special tools for stretching material you may want to look and see if anythings on utube

Did my rear seat bottom on the 292. It is great to have the manufacturer still produce the skins.

Take lots of pics and use stainless everything.

Use monel staples. Stainless staples will still rust.

I replaced the sunpad vinyl on an old 27' Fountain we had. I ordered the skin from Fountain. It wasn't bad - and the install looked as good as Fountains did. Just take your time. If it had been a seat, I would have probably sent it out for someone else to do.

Thanks for the input. We'll see how ambitious I feel when the time comes. Lol

getting all of the old staples out is about the worst, if the foam is wet let air dry before covering, laying them in the sun before installing helps, or using some heat, I tell novice to use hair dryer to keep from killing the material

Start from the middle and work your way out?

Get a staple removal tool from joanne fabrics. Removing staples sucks. Then get the thinnest mil plastic film you can i use .4 mil drop cloth plastic from home depot paint department. Use the plastic to cover the foam and the skins will slide over much easier. Just do not bunch up the plastic or it will show thru. Good luck

You can use a Vacuum Cleaner to pull a Vacuum on your plastic sheeting , thus colapsing the foam and making it very easy to pull your skins on.