Suede Door Panels (pics)

[kev]

Just made some new door panels and thought I would share the pictures. I used 1/4" compressed cardboard for the interior panel. The fabric is black suede I got from a local fabric store. I spray glued some headliner foam to it to give it a soft feel. Then used grey thread (to match car color), and my girlfriends sewing machine to stich on the patterning. I wanted it too look a little closer to stock so I imitated the original "double stitching" look that was pressed into the original panels. I am working on the pull handels right now, and they will get the same treatment.

It's not perfect by any means, as you can see by the non parallel double stitching I did (second or third time on a sewing machine in my life), but I made it myself and I love it.

[TX82FIAT]

Looks good. Match that up with some Suede serats and your in some serious style.

[divace73]

nice work, all you need now is the shoes
I re covered mine in vynal, but could find that centre hole punch clip thing (not sure what they are called) where did you get it from?

[kev]

nice work, all you need now is the shoes
I re covered mine in vynal, but could find that centre hole punch clip thing (not sure what they are called) where did you get it from?

I took mine off of my old door panels. They are put with a strange compression clip that I couldn't figure out so I just did awy with the backing clip and rolled the metal around the board and clamped it down.

[joelittel]

How did you do the pull handles? I've tried coving mine with vinyl but was never happy with the results. The vinyl never fit correctly over the pull handle and the stitching only drew attention to the poor fit.

[kev]

I used two sections of cloth, a top and bottom one. Also, I stapled down a layer of foam to the arm rest first for a little support. Then I laid the cloth on the top and wrapped it around to the front channel where the chrome trim goes and then stapled it around on the back too. I also used a little spray glue where it needed it. There was a split between them on the inside of the handle part obviously so I wrapped vinyl around just the pull part. It covers up the split for the most part and will last longer than just cloth on the handle I am hoping.






Here it is sitting on top of the door panel. I just need to put back on the small chrome end cover to hide my last staple at the top of the arm rest.

[fiasco]

That's impressive work! Nicely done. Gives me some encouragement to try mine at some point.

-- se