What kind of staple gun are you using? Pneumatic? I'm trying to do mine with some nice black vinyl and neither of the staple guns I've tried will fully drive a staple into the stupid plastic the armrest it's made out of. I used two decent hand staplers, not the cheap big chrome kind but the more expensive ones and get the same result. The staple like barely goes in at all and gets all M shaped. Pretty frustrating

 

Hire this guy!

 

wow. that guys crazy.

 

He Cheated !!
He wasn't using a rosin coated nail !

 

**** yes! calling him now!

 

I'd use a pnumatic one personally.

Or glue?

 

I know exactly what youre talking about because I just did this and had the same problem at first. I just used a manual crafstman staple gun like the ones you described that you have used. Get the smallest staples you can use in it (I used 1/4").
In order to get them to go in you need to apply as much pressure as possible. Tilt the arm rest so the surface youre trying to staple into is on a flat surface and put as much of your body weight into it as you can. If you can get a buddy to help and have him apply some pressure to the back of it aswell all the better. If you apply a ****load of pressure they will go in, trust me. I had to pull out a bunch that didnt penetrate all the way, but all the ones I have in it now are fully into the plastic.

 

either that or what i did was just tap the ones that didnt goe all the the way in with a hammer to finish them off.

 

i have the same issue using our pneumatic guns at work. they either won't go in, or they shatter the plastic. best bet would be to use some contact cement and a ton of heat.

 

Yeah I've been using the 1/4" ones the whole time, I tried the next size bigger to test them and just wound up with a bunch of staples on the floor lol. The time I was putting some body weight into it but not my max, I read your post and went back out in the garage and put everything I had into it and got them to go in somewhat decent. Not as good as I would prefer but hopefully they should hold for the most part. I was getting a lot that would go sideways too, I probably used about 1/4 of the pack of staples trying to get the stupid thing covered lol. You're lucky too that your armrest is rectangle shaped and not L shaped like mine.

But thanks for the help everyone I got it covered and it looks pretty good. Much better than the stupid rough tweed **** that comes factory.

 

Damn my seat is dirty as hell lol

 

wow that looks great. looks a little out of place though haha.

i was gunna suggest the spray glue stuff.but you'd still have to staple the ends i'd assume. not sure i've never done much interior work.

 

looks good man, the corners look nice and tight.