I was talking to a friend about what to do with my interior and he mentioned doing a custom door panel for myself. He told me that you just hardwood (don't know if there is another name for it) from Home Depot and then said that there is some sort of foam that you mold into the design you want. Something about a heatgun to heat the mold so you can flex it and mold it.

Can anyone point me the right direction to find the foam and a how to somewhere? Much grass.

 

You can start with the hardboard he's talking about (it's like masonite), or aluminum, or even the stock doorpanel, stripped of it's fabric.

For the foam, you want a harder foam (not like seat cushon stuff) that you can cut with a knife into the shape you want.

Getting professional looking results will take a lot of practice. Covering that type of a surface with vinyl takes skill and practice, both for the vinyl covering, and the craftsmanship of the surface that's getting covered. Poor work will show right through the vinyl.

Another method that's a bit more user-friendly for newbies is to use more hardboard to cut out the shapes you want, then glue them to the main piece go give the shapes you're after. This will be a bit easier to cover, and will take less prep time.

For shapes that are flush fit, you can also take the hardboard, cut out the shape, trim the cut-out piece down a tad, then cover the main piece you cut the shape out of, cover the cut-out in a different fabric, then fit them back together.

Then there's the option of forming custom shapes with fiberglass.

There are a million ways to do custom door panels... that's why they're custom. Just remember that until you get good at it, it'll look like an amature did it, so plan on practicing until you get the results you want.

 

Jim, thanks for the info, I don't think this will be as hard as I first thought. Where can I find the harder foam so I can get some good practice in?

 

if your looking for some type of design, as mentioned with the hardwood, you may use a router to design the edges of the stock(hardwood) to add more of a look... But I have no idea on how thin the stock would have to be to do door a panel.


Home Depot, Lowes, Ace hardward.. etc.

 

I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I have a friend that knows someone that does custom interiors and is going to talk to him for me.

 

Here is what I did. I work at a costume shop (I know) so I have access to seamstresses (more like misstresses). Anyway they put two of my panel together for me. So they did the vynil work, but most of the work was done by me (or you in this case).

Take your door panel off (carefully and slowly trying not to brake any of the little screws).
Take the fabric off the door panel.
This takes a bit longer since there are parts that are stapled to the door
so you will have to "carefully" remove them.
If you want to make shapes take some foam, and like someone mentioned here, NOT the seat foam. Home depot or lowes has it (Just not sure of the name right now.

Than either cut the foam or draw the design on top of it and glue carefully.
Its important that you make the design a bit smaller of what you want it to look like. this is because the fabric will make it look bigger once it goes over.

Now I used 3m headliner glue and its holding up very well, through below freezing to over 90degrees weather. You can use a step higher glue. They all have numbers just choose the highest one, just be carefull and read what they are used for, since some of them are not good for heat and/or cold.

So, now you are ready to put it together.
Glue the foam with the spray glue. Now, many people don't realise that you have to spray both of the objects that you are gluing, not just one. Spray both the bare panel and the fabric you are puttin over. Than wait about 30secs to a minute and than glue. This is very important since the glue needs to set up. If it does not its not going to work.
So, do the foam first, than do the fabric over. Work from one side to the other and don't try to pre-cut the holes before you glue. Its a lot better to glue the whole thing in than cut holes in X shape. Than just pull through the hole and it will look the best.
From there make sure you push in the fabric into the design wherever it goes in and out. Valley and hills. Its important that you do this while you are putting it on immidiately, since the glue has it adhesion period, after that the air dries it and its not good.
Go over you design at the end, just incase there are some loose areas that need some push. Its kinda of a lost cause at that time, but it will help areas that might have been sprayed a bit heavy with the glue.

Once you are done cutting the holes and fitting everything on, its time to put in the anchors that hold the panel to the door.
If you are like me you will have some fabric covering the mounting holes in which these anchors go.
What I did is just cut through the fabric and screwed them in (you'll see what am talking about).
Take care of the final details and if there is an area you don't like, fix it immidiatelly, or you will regret it later.

At the very end, I took some duct tape and taped the ends of the fabric to the back of the door panel. I know it sounds ghetto, but it will give this fabric support while it sets up overnight.
You can remove it later if you want, but I did not. No one can see and it provides the added support.

Good luck and here is a little pick of mine. Which is going to be changed to a cool design that I am creating right now.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks, that's some really good info. I'm still getting all the stuff that I will need, so if you find the name or type of the foam, let me know.

 

This might not help much, but once you strip your door panels you will know exactly what foam I am talking about. Even fabric stores have it (at least here in Denver).

Good luck.

 

The foam that the classic hot rodders are using is a close cell foam, it's 3/16" to a max of 1/8". Now, all I need is a design.