My wonderful wife who is very handy with a sewing machine has decided to give me a set of hand made door inner panels for our 1958 Plymouth Suburban for Christmas (am I a lucky dog or what? ). I have horribly messed up door panels to make patterns up for her, and I think I'm handy enough to make the reqiured backing panels, but I don't have any good idea of what a good looking set should look like. Anyone have any good photo's of the front and rear inner door panels I can show her so she has an idea of what they should look like? 57-61 is the styling I'd like to follow, so if I could get photo's from any of those years I would really appriciate it, but any photo's I can get of inner pannels I can give her for ideas would be reallly kewl! My 'burban is not an exact restoration so a little leeway is OK
Yep, you've got a partnership there. Good on ya. Precious. Ok, I just cruised the gallery and found this for the 1958 Plymouths: http://stationwagonforums.com/forums/gallery/browseimages.php?do=browseimages&c=18&page=3 You might want to check the Dodge gallery also. One tip: With cloth you'd need to sew in a clear vinyl protector at the window winders. Will vinyl, it would still be washable. Use a really thin foam under the fabric. Also check out these DIY articles: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168060 The Automotive tip links are near the bottom of the page. http://www.upholster.com/howto/ This is the door panel section: http://www.upholster.com/auto/doorpan.html
Gotta keep the ball rolling. I did a decent job on mine, but I'm sure your better half will do you proud.
Did you see this one in the Gallery? It's in the Station Wagon Ads. section, with some of the old sales brochures. http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/gallery/showimage.php?i=1065&catid=76 Which reminds me... Have a drool session in here too: http://www.tocmp.com/ This is their new site, but the first link isn't all swapped over yet: http://www.oldcarmanualproject.com/ The list wouldn't be complete without this: http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/main.php Another idea is reproducing those fancy chrome inserts, that swerve and accent the door panel. Not easy to do. They were usually made of plated steel or stainless steel stampings. If yours are in good shape, ignore this. What you can do though, otherwise, is buy some styrene plastic sheet (1/8") and cut them out on a bandsaw, fine-toothed blade, sand them smooth to about 800 grit, and super glue some clips on the backside. Styrene is brittle but is cheap to get chrome plated. PVC is better, but its tough to get plated. You could also use Krylon's Chrome spray paint and then clear coat finishes (satin or higher). You have to use an inert material. Wood would absorb moisture on thin-line strips. Here's a couple places that might carry some of that fancy chrome insert vinyl too, and clips: http://legendaryautointeriors.com/home.aspx http://www.classictrimcoat.com/index.html http://www.cvvacuumplaters.com/ http://www.chrometechusa.com/index.html http://www.perfectproductsonline.com/upholsupplies.html http://www.thetrimconnection.com/facts.asp Your wife will want this thread selection info, for this and other projects: http://www.theartfulcrafter.com/sewing-tips-two.html
I outdid myself! I knew I'd seen a site with a Door Panel gallery. Just couldn't recall where I kept it... CRS... Here's the doorpanel gallery. Just move your mouse over the panels and read the car models at the bottom: http://www.smsautofabrics.com/products_door.html Here's the main site. Headliners, seats, etc.: http://www.smsautofabrics.com/
Forward look Thank you for the heads up, I'm already a posting member over there. I bragged about my wife there too.
