help to cover an interior custom door.

[barned01]

I am in the process of making a custom door for my RA40.
It is proving to be quite a bit harder than i was hoping due to the fact I don't want a simple flat door.
Anyway Work in progress shots here to show the general shape of the bottom half of the door.
I have a slight issue in that i can't comprehend in my head how i go about covering the door.
Bear in mind these are work in progress shots and i am yet to 'fill in the gaps so to speak...which will be another step...
Anyway I am after suggestions on how to proceed next.
Now for pictures.


In this picture you can see the general shape of what lower half of the door panel will look like. The lower left is cut out and carpet will go there. the lower right is built up a bit to house a speaker in it. If you imaginarily filled in the green perimeter you would get an idea of how it will be covered.
This is the easy part.
The hard part is that little rectangle in the middle there.
If you can imagine it, the handle runs along the top of that rectangle and that rectangle is a 'cut out bit'. The bottom two pictures should hopefully explain it better.



This is looking at the door handle from below, it is the cut out bit that you see in the picture above.
The door handle is essentially a square piece of wood raised from the backing plate and the skin goes down at an angle to the bottom of the door.



from above you can see that the scin is empty to the base of the door. This will create a 'pocket' to store the UBD and what not.

The Pronblem i am having invisaging is how to cover it with vinyl as i don't know how to tackle the corners and angles.

I will cover the whole door probably with fiberglass to fill in the gaps and make nice smooth contours to give you the shape you see in the first picture so that should be no drama (unless someone has a better idea, i did think of using really thin mdf and 'moulding' it with the help of some steam to get the desired feel, but that seemed a little harder than just stretching some t-shirt material and fiberglassing it....if you think otherwise, please tell me)
now a can visualise the vinyl going around it right up to where the hole is. I thought possibly a stitch line around all the edges of the handle but then i wouldn't know how to sew the final line in once i get to the bottom or how to go about sewing down the dides of the 'pocket' or to have vinyl on the base to where the handle connects.
If anyone is good at upholstery and has an idea could you please help.
Jusst modify the pictures and tell me where i should fold and where i should sew.

Just in case it is important the backing plate is 3mm mdf and is built up from that.

cheers in advance
Barnsey.

[Lambolica]

That will be a heavy door trim....

With using vinyl it helps alot to heat the vinyl as you are work this gives it a little flexability to pull it around corners and the like and smooth out the winkles that you get in the corners.

If you look at the way toyota make the door trim you will see that the handle is bolted onto/through the skin this mean that the whole part doesn't have to be covered as all the Vinyl (so to speak) is hidden when the handle is bolted to the door.

Which begs the question is the "handle" bolted directly to the door?

what you ideally want is no sharp curves as you will be able to apply the vinyl much cleaner.

Another option (however time consuming and expensive) would be to build up a door trim like you are doing fill up all the gaps, smooth it over and paint it. then take a fibre glass mould and make it out of one piece light weight as Ra40 doors have enough issues with their own weight without adding more.

[barned01]

with the exception of the top door handle bit, it is esentially just a skeletonthe back is 3mm mdf. the frame that runs along the bottom edge is 6mm mdf (to ad some depth when i put fiberglass over it) the part on the bottom right is 2 rings of 16mm pine to raise the height, and 6mm mdf on top. and the long handle itself is pine that is about 67.5mm high by 40mm wide. i wanted to use a one piece piece of pine for the handle as that is where all the force will be when opening and closing the door. all up it is about 1.4KG's I don't know if that is heavy or not though. i see where you are going with a mould but i would still want to keep the pine door hanle bit for rigidity.
if i heat the vinyl i should be able to get most corners and angles, but i still don't know how i would wrap it around the handle itself...

[Lambolica]

This is what I mean by curving the surface.... Excuse my lack of paint skillz ... It ain't autoCAD......

I realise you said you need to finish sanding and filling and the like but if you give yourself no 90 degree corners you save yourself some grief. and sand your cut edges more rounded (I assume the you haven't yet got that far...)



You would also be better off removing the 3mm MDF. Putting the vinyl on the door card and on the door handle then bolting them back together.


EDIT: I read your second post too late, I see you have built it up. in the photos it looks like 1 big lump of timber that is pretty cool, just keep it as light as possible.

[Major Clod]

Call some Automotive Upholstery suppliers and see if they have any vinyl that can stretch in both directions.

If not, find some vinyl that can have the cloth backing peeled off easily. I had some vinyl here from spotlight, it lifted a corner with a sharp knife, then just ripped the cloth backing off by hand. It'll be stretchy in both directions now instead of one. Some vinyl has backing that is a lot harder, almost impossible to get off.

For added flexibility for certain areas, you can peel the backing off, then soak the vinyl in thinners or acetone for 10 minutes or so. It'll turn out really rubbery and extremely stretchy. Once the thinners has disolved completely, it should return to normal. I have tried this out with some test pieces, however I haven't gone ahead and used this on my car yet, so I can't guarantee the results completely. It didn't seem to affect the colour or texture of the finish.

Finally, you might need to cut out some shapes and sew certain sections into shape, that way when you go to glue it down you won't have to bend and stretch as much.

Its really a matter of trial and error, trying to see what exactly you can do to get the job done.

[barned01]

cheers guys
I can modify the door bit like what lambolica said above but i would still have trouble with the acute angle between the backing wood an the door handle proper...although if i had separately vinyled the back board and just wrapped/heated/stretched the vinyl around the door handle proper...it might nock that angle out....hmmm maybe the pocket bit should be a separate part...more thought to come.
I also got some vinyl from spotlight (unfortunately they don't have a dark charcoal colour so i had to use black instead) so i will try pullint the backing off of it to see how it goes...

[EldarO]

your going to end up with a joint in the vinyl, no way you can avoid it, but make sure the joint is in a less obvious place, and your cuts are nice and straight, and you shouldnt notice it all too much

Eldar.O.

[horse]

barned have u thought about making a base mould from hard foam, then make a fibreglass layer over the foam. once u have ur initial structure, u can then start to build it up underneath (i.e the back side) so that which ever areas need more strengthening can have additional layers of FG and so forth. will allow for better curves, and its easier to sand down FG for vinyl as u just bog it and sand

and another thing, would u cover or paint the mdf ? just that the door will get wet inside from rain, not a flooding but enough to get the mdf wet, and they dont go together well

[stahlz_ae86]

I think you should use masonite board for the main back panel as opposed to MDF. As Huy pointed out with the wet issue, MDF swells big time. And back panel should be separate to the armrest piece too, for ease of covering. See if you can also do it so you have the armrest bolting into the original threads of the old one, securing the whole lot as per original, then cover the bolts with something that just clips in.

[stahlz_ae86]

Don't feel bad if you have to do things a few times to get your final result, I went through the same thing for my custom speaker box thing in the front of my AE71 before I got the desired result.

[barned01]

i have had a piece of 4mm 3ply covering the door for about 2 years now. It still seems fine on the back and i don't have the plastic membrane either.
that was goingt ot stay in place and i was going to screw what you see above into the 3ply and then into the door in numerous places.
I thought about suing a 3mm peice of flat steel that would follow the mounting points of the old handle and ultimately connect to my new handle to retain 'pull rigidity' on the door. but the thickness of it might be a bit hard to hide (although if i removed the backing...)

But yeah that backing piece of 3mm mdf looks like it will proove to be the problem when wrapping the vinyl around it all.
Maybe if i remove the 3mm backing, vinyl wrap the side mounts where the pocket goes separately and vinyl wrap the door handle (which flows down to the bottom of the door and speaker pod), then the only hard bit then would be around the handle itself at the bottom and the side that faces into the door. i could vinyl wrap the 3ply and then that would completely encompass the pocket area however.

no matter how i do this, stitching looks like it will be inevitable.
Is there any hints on stitching vinyl?

I don't know how i would make the handle bit of the mould either...unless that was a removeable bit.

[barned01]

does anyone have their own backyard examples by any chance?
Not just flat ones, something with some contours in it

[TA-022]

i got the cranks just making a flat 1!

good luck.. you've got more patience than me that's for sure!

[3AM]

ive seen upholsters heat up vinyl with a heat gun.. whether it was to make it more stretchy for corners or to dry the glue im not sure tho...

[stahlz_ae86]

ive seen upholsters heat up vinyl with a heat gun.. whether it was to make it more stretchy for corners or to dry the glue im not sure tho...

Mainly heat is applied to gain a better stick with the contact adhesive.