How to get rid of 1000s of yards of aircraft grade polyurethane upholstery?

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Mightyfine

Filing Flight Plan
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Mightyfine
Hello,

I apologize if this is the wrong section. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for getting rid of 1000s of yards of Tapis Ultraleather? I would like to move it all at once and not sell a roll here and there. I guess my question is; who is my target customer in my case? I was thinking about targeting larger private jet completion centers. Are there any sort of middle men that function in this section of the industry?

Thank you for any of your input. I know it’s a rather strange question.
 
I’d take it to an upholstery factory, furniture or auto. Much bigger market.

OTOH, Boeing is cutting the price of the new Air Force One.

Cheers
 
For starters, stop calling it "aircraft grade leather". It's polyurethane, not leather. Unless you have traceability back to the manufacturer and/or burn tests, you'd be better off trying to unload it to a motorhome or boat upholstery shop.
 
tyndall said:
For starters, stop calling it "aircraft grade leather". It's polyurethane, not leather. Unless you have traceability back to the manufacturer and/or burn tests, you'd be better off trying to unload it to a motorhome or boat upholstery shop.
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I understand it’s not real leather. I have most of the certificates from Tapis that includes order #, color, roll/lot # and length of roll. Thank you for your suggestion.
 
So it’s not even real leather? What a fake out. I was heading in the other room to get my checkbook til I read that. Bait & switch. I’m calling the cops.
 
tyndall said:
For starters, stop calling it "aircraft grade leather". It's polyurethane, not leather. Unless you have traceability back to the manufacturer and/or burn tests, you'd be better off trying to unload it to a motorhome or boat upholstery shop.
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Who cares about tracing it, if it's good aircraft or automotive leather it'll pass a burn test, even though for GA and it's not even required, I'd still send a sample off and get a burn cert because it's cheap and easy.

https://www.avweb.com/news/maint/182839-1.html

That said, the bigger issue he's going to have trying to off load it is that its pleather, spending the money to have seats stitched only to not use real leather just doesn't make sense to me.
 
Lachlan said:
So it’s not even real leather? What a fake out. I was heading in the other room to get my checkbook til I read that. Bait & switch. I’m calling the cops.
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That’s why I gave the specific brand Ultraleather, which makes the polyurethane upholstery products.Tapis takes Ultraleather’s product and applies fire resistant coating and certifies the product from my understanding. Also, Emirates is using the product in their first class suites.
 
tyndall said:
For starters, stop calling it "aircraft grade leather". It's polyurethane, not leather. Unless you have traceability back to the manufacturer and/or burn tests, you'd be better off trying to unload it to a motorhome or boat upholstery shop.
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The title says "leather". Clearly it isn't. I would recommend that the OP go back and fix that. Otherwise, bait and switch isn't a bad description.
 
Ghery said:
The title says "leather". Clearly it isn't. I would recommend that the OP go back and fix that. Otherwise, bait and switch isn't a bad description.
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-Edit - Changed the title.
 
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NoHeat said:
You guys aren't very welcoming.

The OP can't be "bait and switch" when the OP is not offering the product for sale, but merely asks "I guess my question is; who is my target customer"

Maybe this list will be helpful, to get an idea of how fragmented interior shops are: https://www.globalair.com/directories/Products-Accessories-46-2.html
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I was going to post that exact phrase, but felt like I should just take the heat since I'm a newbie here. Otherwise I would be posting in the classifieds section. I've compiled a list of 30+ U.S. based completions centers. From my understanding, they mostly custom order all the materials and don't like to sit on a large piles of inventory. Thank you for the resource.

I thought that it would be beneficial to post on here before I went all gung-ho contacting all these places to make sure I didn't miss something, since I'm a novice to the industry.
 
Post an ad on Trade-A-Plane and see what happens from there.
 
So you bought a large quantity of this fake leather without a real plan to offload it or even a basic understanding of the market for it. I’ll say one thing, you have balls.
 
Forget aircraft and contact RV seating manufacturers, (no burn requirements), this material is used for motor homes, fifth wheels and more, it is actually more scratch and wear resistant than real leather and looks great, the other option are upholstery shops that use these materials.

Some of the seating manufacturers for the RV industry are Flex Steel, and Villa International, Brad and Hall, and more all make seating using the materials that you have, just google RV furniture manufacturers, and like someone said know the market before you buy the stuff and what it is worth.
 
Awfully curious what you paid for it. If it retails for ~$45, did you pay $20? $1.50? What do you need to make on it? What's it costing you to store?
 
I think this pleather would make a cool looking man cave....

I toured a house in Texas that was built in the mid 70s, 1870s, and had an early version man cave. It was called the smoking room back in the day. It had leather covered walls.


th


th
 
Zeldman said:
I think this pleather would make a cool looking man cave....

I toured a house in Texas that was built in the mid 70s, 1870s, and had an early version man cave. It was called the smoking room back in the day. It had leather covered walls.


th


th
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All it's missing is a mirror table with lines of coke and one of those gaudy looking phones next to the bed lol
 
Mightyfine said:
Emirates is using the product in their first class suites.
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Well, now... that changes everything. Mama always said, “If it’s good enough for the sheik it’s fine fir the infidel.” Mama was a true patriot. (Not the loser cheating football kind.)
 
Try using E bay.auto,Marine and aviation sections.
 
Ebay. My buddy does this. Buys big lots of surplus and sells items individually on ebay
 
Lachlan said:
Well, now... that changes everything. Mama always said, “If it’s good enough for the sheik it’s fine fir the infidel.” Mama was a true patriot. (Not the loser cheating football kind.)
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I'd wager a beer the sheiks never sat that arse down on pleather.
 
James331 said:
I'd wager a beer the sheiks never sat that arse down on pleather.
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I dunno, they seem to be fond of throwing them under house arrest for graft lately. Pleather upholstery is probably part of the punishment.
 
Can make this into Pleather pants?
 
'get rid of' used to mean (in my circles)

-discard
-throw away

not to nitpick words but I figured we'd all be moving a couple yards of nice leather into our hangars, shops shortly.
Alas, it is "for sale".
 
Zeldman said:
I think this pleather would make a cool looking man cave....

I toured a house in Texas that was built in the mid 70s, 1870s, and had an early version man cave. It was called the smoking room back in the day. It had leather covered walls.


th


th
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That looks more like the 'shagging room'.

Considering the jihad against smoking in public, the day will come that having a 'smoking room' will be required for anyone who wants to keep that vice.
 
For the OP:
I would not bank on selling this to jet completion centers. I doubt they are terribly price sensitive for something they can order by the roll.

- put small lots of it on ebay
- market it to the RV furniture and RV refurbishment folks
- market it to boat upholstery shops
- market it to custom car upholstery shops

The RV, boating and custom market are 100 times the size of the jet completion folks.
 
Re-purpose it. Create an urban tent design and market it as low-cost shelter for natural disaster response while also serving the marginalized and homeless. This is a win for everyone.
 
Clark1961 said:
Re-purpose it. Create an urban tent design and market it as low-cost shelter for natural disaster response while also serving the marginalized and homeless. This is a win for everyone.
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And add: Won't someone please think of the children...:lol::lol:
 
weilke said:
Considering the jihad against smoking in public, the day will come that having a 'smoking room' will be required for anyone who wants to keep that vice.
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And said smoking room will need to be well hidden, with smoke sequestration lest the neighbors catch a whiff and call the cops.
 
DaleB said:
And said smoking room will need to be well hidden, with smoke sequestration lest the neighbors catch a whiff and call the cops.
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We'll live in a world were pot is legal and cigars are not soon enough.
 
weilke said:
For the OP:
I would not bank on selling this to jet completion centers. I doubt they are terribly price sensitive for something they can order by the roll.

- put small lots of it on ebay
- market it to the RV furniture and RV refurbishment folks
- market it to boat upholstery shops
- market it to custom car upholstery shops

The RV, boating and custom market are 100 times the size of the jet completion folks.
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Thanks for the advice. I thought I would start where I could get the most money for the product and work my way down.
 
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