Progress on #782

[ERA Chas]

A scalpel, found at surgical supply or model and hobby outlets is the BEST cutting tool-period. Get extra blades and change frequently.
I mentioned the roller in that tutorial I wrote and it's invaluable. Get a 6" wide framer's roller used for adhering posters onto adhesive mounting board.
I'm not so sure about heating the vinyl-I think it contracts again after it is cool. Even when adhered down with contact cement.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

A scalpel, found at surgical supply or model and hobby outlets is the BEST cutting tool-period. Get extra blades and change frequently.
I mentioned the roller in that tutorial I wrote and it's invaluable. Get a 6" wide framer's roller used for adhering posters onto adhesive mounting board.
I'm not so sure about heating the vinyl-I think it contracts again after it is cool. Even when adhered down with contact cement.

I have some of those X-acto knives (I believe that is correct) from my model building days. I need to pick up some new blades for it down at Hobby Lobby. I don't know on the heat. I know professional seat upholsters use a lot of heat or steam in final fitting of seat covers but I'm not sure if it actually draws and shrinks up the loose areas of the vinyl or just makes it easier to work over the foam and make it all smooth out and fit better.

Thanks

[lippy]

For me, those wheel well bulges, and the front of the tunnel, were the most difficult areas. I got them close, very close, but not perfect.

From my experience, for the wheel bulges:

(1) fit first without any contact cement, then apply the contact cement to both sides and let it set up for a good 15-20m. Start at the inside, a bit at a time, and work toward the outside. I used a roller, and also a piece of plastic angle for the corners to help push the carpet down.
(2) I tried a hairdryer to heat up and stretch the carpet. It did me no good. I also added a slit over one of the bulges, and that was a mistake. In the end, I purchased an extra piece of carpet and reapplied on the driver side.
(3) I used a plain utility knife, but with good US-made blades, replaced often. It cuts through the carpet like butter.

Just take your time and work it carefully. You will figure it out. If something doesn't turn out right, call ERA and buy another carpet segment, and reapply.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by lippy

For me, those wheel well bulges, and the front of the tunnel, were the most difficult areas. I got them close, very close, but not perfect.

From my experience, for the wheel bulges:

(1) fit first without any contact cement, then apply the contact cement to both sides and let it set up for a good 15-20m. Start at the inside, a bit at a time, and work toward the outside. I used a roller, and also a piece of plastic angle for the corners to help push the carpet down.
(2) I tried a hairdryer to heat up and stretch the carpet. It did me no good. I also added a slit over one of the bulges, and that was a mistake. In the end, I purchased an extra piece of carpet and reapplied on the driver side.
(3) I used a plain utility knife, but with good US-made blades, replaced often. It cuts through the carpet like butter.

Just take your time and work it carefully. You will figure it out. If something doesn't turn out right, call ERA and buy another carpet segment, and reapply.

Lippy - good tips but I'm covering my rear area with vinyl which is even more unforgiving than carpet on less than flat surfaces. 427Street (Frank) is responsible for planting this seed in my mind to somewhat match original street cars. Funny - he started all of this in a thread last winter and I haven't heard from him since on here as to how his install of vinyl went.

[KevinW]

i would be very careful with a heat gun - they can be brutal if used thoughtlessly, particularly on very thin vynil. Ladies hair dryers are far more gentle, and allow you to control a more gentle flow of heat into the vynil, although this process does take a few more minutes to affect.

there is an alternative to your edging issues, which would give you a whole load of extra work.....: you could take a mould off part of your cockpit, make a grp skin and trim that. This allows you to fold over all the exposed edges. I did this on the inner door skin, and the inner wheel arches (which on the crendon are a little less authentic, but rather easier to trim). Does take a bit of time to do though

crendon door skin test fit - Cobra Club Gallery

[DanEC]

Kevin - that door skin and the shot of the rear bulkhead look great. Probably smoother than the originals ever were. So you molded a cover to fit there and then covered the mold with vinyl. What did you mold the covers from?

[lippy]

While you are working in that area, another little thing I did was to cut out a small patch of vinyl for each side and glue it under each seatbelt anchor. The carpet has cutouts for the anchors but you can still see a small part of the floor panel. With the vinyl glued in it looks really finished.

[KevinW]

Originally Posted by DanEC

Kevin - that door skin and the shot of the rear bulkhead look great. Probably smoother than the originals ever were. So you molded a cover to fit there and then covered the mold with vinyl. What did you mold the covers from?

Hi Dan - thanks. and basically, 'yes' - I made a mould from parts on the car, but then I laminated on the inside of the mould to make a 'grp skin', so that I had a nice smooth exposed surface for gluing the vynil.

Heres some description of my laminating and trimming exploits. Rather verbose, but hopefully some readers might find it interesting:

The rear flat panel over the back of the cockpit is a sheet of 3mm ali cut after drawing a cardboard template. I then drilled holes along the top and bottom, drilling through into the rear cockpit wall as well to get the alignment right. The bottom holes were countersunk, and then c/s screws superglued in place and locknut-ed on the other side. Then I covered the panel in vynil covering the bottom c/s screws and wrapping the vynil edge behind the panel. Once the panel was offered up in place, I pushed the bottom row of screws through the holes and used plan nuts to nip these up, not too tight. I then pushed button head screws through the top of the panel - these are hidden up under the cockpit surround, and again nipped these up, initially with wing nuts, as it was a real pain doing all of this single handed - i needed arms like that guy from Fantastic 4. I then took some thin plastic/vynil? piping trim and pushed this under the gap between the panel and the carpet and continued all the way round to produced a piped edge between the vynil and the carpet - ofcourse no original cars had this, but your ERA is a more authentic design at the rear cockpit than on my car, so i think your carpet wont come up so high.

The rear wheel inner wing covers and the skins for the doors were all made the same way. These were early learning exercises for when I made the grp footboxes you can also see in my gallery - learning to laminate was one of my plans for this project- really is very easy on small pieces. The inner wings were painted in-situ in liquid pva (blue stuff, not the white glue stuff). I then mixed up some gelcoat and when this had gone tacky applied 2 layers of medium thickness matting and laminated in place. 1 hour later I took a screwdriver and levered off, what was now, the mould. I then tidied the mould up with a Dremel removing the sharp grp edges, washed it out and let it set for a few days. Then I repeated the above process to make a 'skin' for trimming using this new mould. Using only 1-2 layers of grp allows the resulting 'skin' to flex a bit and fit nicely over the original surface on the car. The door skins were made exactly the same way after removing the doors on the car and making a mould in my kitchen (stank out the house):

Making the mould:
http://www.cobraclub.com/gallery/sho...lay-up/cat/500
Resulting 'skin' taken from the mould:
http://www.cobraclub.com/gallery/sho...r-skin/cat/500

Both door skins and the inner wings required a fair bit of hair-dryer heat to make the vynil 'give' enough to cover the compound curves without wrinkles. My long suffering G/F provided an extra pair of hands for gently tugging and stretching the vynil, although the really tough part was the concave curve at the very upper from part of the door skin. There are a few pics of all of this in my gallery, but the uk cobraclub hosting site has jumbled them up, so they arent in the right order.