The Retrim Cut-List Kit

The VehicleInterior kit for cutting and buying a seat, door-card and carpet retrim once, with the airbag zones left alone and the tint checked before it goes on

VehicleInterior's Upholstery Fabric Calculator turns panel areas into a length of fabric by dividing by the roll width, and it is right for what it assumes: that panels could be poured into a roll like water. Our Carpet Area Calculator stops at square meters, though carpet is sold by the length at its roll's width. The Material Cost Estimator counts adhesive for one face, and the Window Tint VLT Calculator says whether a film passes but never which film is the darkest that does. The Retrim Cut-List Kit puts them together. In its worked example, an older hatchback's front seat backs carry side airbags and come off the list first. The nine pieces left, cut with a 1.5 cm seam, need 2.04 m laid in rows across a 140 cm roll, where the calculator says 1.94 m: an order 10 cm short, and a second order from a dye lot that never matches. Measured over the hump, the carpet needs 3.3 m of a 1.8 m roll, where area divided by width suggested 1.45 m. The adhesive is 3 cans for both faces, not 2, and on 80% glass an example 35% limit allows no film darker than 43.8%. Every worked figure is an example you replace with your own panels. The kit never covers an airbag zone, follows the adhesive's label for ventilation and flames, and never states a tint law: you check your own state's rule for each window. You get a 26-page printable PDF with seven steps, a panel list, a cut layout grid, a carpet and glue sheet, a window check, a buy list, reference tables, the safety floor and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked out from the numbers you entered in our calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the kit, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The airbag zones: which seats, pillars and panels come off the list before anything is measured
• The seam allowance: every panel's cut size, and what seams add to a job
• The row layout: pieces in rows across the roll, and the length that really comes off it
• The pattern repeat and the one order: whole repeats, cut steps, meters and quarter yards, one dye lot
• Carpet over the hump: the tunnel measured over the surface, laid out at the carpet roll's width
• Adhesive for both faces: cans counted for the coated area, with the label's ventilation rules
• The tint check backwards: the darkest film your state's limit allows on your glass, window by window
• Working pages: a panel list, a cut layout grid, a carpet and glue sheet, a window check and a buy list
• Reference tables and the safety floor: darkest film by glass and limit, the floor under any layout
• A quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from the numbers you entered

The kit picks up where the free Upholstery Fabric Calculatorleaves off. The calculator divides an area by the roll width; the kit takes the airbag zones off the list first, adds the seam allowance to every panel, lays the pieces out in rows across the roll the way they will really be cut, adds the pattern repeat, measures carpet over the tunnel rather than across it and lays it out at the carpet roll’s width, counts contact adhesive for both faces, and runs the tint calculator backwards to the darkest film a limit allows. It never covers an airbag zone, and it never states a tint law: you check your own state’s rule. The worked figures are examples; your own panels replace them.