Upholstery Help

lotas · Post by **lotas** » Tue May 09, 2006 1:42 pm

Hey guys I need to professionally recover my door panels (I did them hastily last time just to see if I liked the look) well one thing I need to fix is that there are imperfections in the actual door panel, when you strip off the carpet or vinyl or whatever...little crevices or bumps that will show up when the material is stretched tightly over it.

Any solutions to this? Any ideas? Thanks

Justin from Detroit1 · Tue May 09, 2006 1:53 pm

What material is the door panel with the crevices?

lotas · Post by **lotas** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:59 pm

Its like a hard foam material...hard to explain, but that's the only way I can describe it. It looks like foam, but is hard, and has little holes just like foam and seems pretty porous(sorry, sp?). Not sure if its a common material I'm just not familiar with, or what.

But you know how when you're say, covering fiberglass, and there's imperfections, you could put on another layer of carpet and the more layers you put on the less noticeable they are. I was thinking of doing somethingl like that, finding some "base" material to put down over the foam stuff and then covering that with carpet, but the first layer couldn't be too thick, but at the same time it'd have to fill in the spots.

I don't know I'm terrible at coming up with ideas like this :)

Ryan from Ohio · Post by **Ryan from Ohio** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:59 pm

Bondo!

lotas · Post by **lotas** » Tue May 09, 2006 3:02 pm

Ryan from Ohio wrote:Bondo!

lol are you serious or joking? because that's actually the first thing I thought of, but I think that would just turn into a huge mess. I don't know how the material would handle it.

CaptainPioneer · Post by **CaptainPioneer** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:02 pm

what kinda car and maybe i can get an idea of what kinda material they used

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:58 pm

put a layer of some thin foam over it. then when you stretch the material or vinyl over it, it will compress and cover the imperfections

Ryan from Ohio · Post by **Ryan from Ohio** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:28 pm

I hate using Bondo...

The shit is ALWAYS ultra hard when I try to sand it... Like it eats sandpaper...

I used Duraglass a few times.. Seems to be better than bondo and a bit cheaper.

ridr4lif · Post by **ridr4lif** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:31 pm

The trick with bondo, is to grate it down while its still semi soft, with a cheese grater type thing made for body work. Get a lot of the big lumps out that way, and use sandpaper once its semi-hard. Dont let it cure fully before trying to sand it.

Edit: I probably wouldnt use bondo in your application tho Lotas. I dont think it'd work too well. I kno the material you are talkin about.

JeremyC · Post by **JeremyC** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:38 pm

Hay Joey, whats that yellow bondo you and JR use. He got me using that stuff when I worked for Fibber and I love it. SOOOOOOOO much easer to work with.

Ryan, you really need to try this stuff. I hated working with bondo till my budies got me hooked on this stuff.