Need tips for vinyl-covered fiberglass interior trim parts

[rporter]

I have used weldwood HHR with great result. Brushing works best for me. 3m  has not worked well for me.

[Moderator]

My transmission tunnel trim project is pretty much complete now - except I'll add an aluminum wear plate next to my throttle pedal to overlap, clamp down, and protect the vinyl from wear.

What have I learned since my last post?

Contact cement is easier to apply with a paint gun, and when you spray it on you use less cement. The guys at S&S Upholstery here in Longmont tell me that they leave contact cement in their gun year round, and it never clogs or needs to be cleaned out. S&S also advised that any "bubbles" in my vinyl application would likely disappear when the part gets hot. "Just leave it in the sun for a little while." Sure enough! Their tip on darts is just to cut them less deeply and rely instead/more on the stretchiness of the vinyl. Darts on my second part turned out much better than on my first part.

In fact, the whole part turned out a little neater. My vinyl stretching team is practiced now. We're three people: myself, my wife, and our dear neighbor Justine who lives across our back alley from us. The application needs to be divided into reasonable size segments. We start by test-stretching the vinyl over the fiberglass part to see where they will need adhesive, and marking the back side of the vinyl with Sharpie. Then we mask and apply contact cement to the matching surfaces. Suppose the segment we're doing is triangular except that it wraps over a radiused edge... one side of the triangle gets lined up as a starting point. Then, one person is responsible for holding all the excess vinyl up (because it will GRAB if it's given the chance). A second person presses vinyl down against the fiberglass (and landau pad) bit by bit, working across the triangle. The third person's job is to tug and stretch the vinyl as necessary.

Avoid using any sort of clamp at all; in this project they weren't necessary and the one or two places I tried to use them just gave me crushed areas that were slow to rise back up.

So now I'm thinking about door panels. Before I dive into that, I'm scheming about ways to trim around the door latches (instead of using MG's plastic trim pieces), about more robust door pulls, about custom window crank handles, and about  recontouring the door cap rails a half inch taller so they better hide the window seal and clips from view and also make it more comfortable for me to rest my arm when the window is down.

[ex-tyke]

Hope you know, Curtis, that you're starting to add weight......

[MGBV8]

Wow, that is very nice, Curtis!  I guess the door panels & kick panels are next.  

[BlownMGB-V8]

There are some chromed metal door pulls that are quite sturdy, I have them in my car. Must have come from the '67.

Jim

[Moderator]

Now that I've had time to think about it, I'm leaning toward simply building a minimalist door pull feature into the new door caps. Just some sort of dent you can get your finger tips into.  I took one of the old door caps off to have a look. I'd forgotten how dense they are. Replacing them with hollow or foam filled caps might almost be enough to offset the weight of upholstering the door cards.

I've been thinking about stitch patterns. Is this too much?

(Imagine this layout but in black stitches over black vinyl. Where you see white, that's just paper.)

[Jim Stabe]

You better be careful, you may have to tie the car down if it gets breezy.

[Moderator]

I got a long way to go!  

I saw a magazine article the other day about Volkswagen's GTI model. The article mentioned how light the first-gen GTI was. At 1945 pounds, it was about four hundred pounds lighter than a contemporary MGB roadster. Wow.

[63BlueMGB]

Curtis,

Looks really good! Here is my door panels that I have made for my car, I really like the idea of fiberglassing them to save on weight.

[Moderator]

Nice! I like the way you've carried the theme from panel to panel.

I ordered a mess of plastic clips from Moss the other day. I'm curious to see how well they'll work with panels that are much thinner than usual.

[Moderator]

Following up, I've molded a pair of custom door caps out of fiberglass. They're not as light as they could possibly be, but they'll work.

Caps and cards are pre-drilled and are ready to cover with foam and vinyl.


(I decided to use 1972-model MGB pull handles, mounted parallel with roll cage tubes.)

[BlownMGB-V8]

Very nice work Curtis.

[Moderator]

This project is taking too long!


(First door card now covered in vinyl. Door cap just padded at this stage.)

[Preform Resources]

Curtis, I probably missed it somewhere,,, but what kind of sewing machine are you using ??
Dave

[Moderator]

Over 1000 stitches per door panel, all hand-stitched by two-needle saddle stitch method.


I finished and installed the passenger door panel today, only to discover the door lock on that side would no longer latch. Lisa said she'd prefer her door to be latched while we're driving around Colorado Springs this week, so for the time being I adjusted the striker plate outward. Might rethink that after the meet. Covering the door caps will have to wait too.

[MGBV8]

Looked great in person!