A little over two years ago I decided to redo the interior trim work on my car, but determined to hold off on doing the seat covers. The trim work was a mess, but fortunately, gave me enough of a pattern to work from to do it somewhat properly. So three weeks ago I went all in and ordered materials to redo the seats. It has been quite an adventure (yes, I am making them myself) but so far, I have been fairly pleased with the results.
My inquiry comes back to the panel which sits above the arm rest and below the quarter window. When I redid this panel a couple of years ago, it appeared to me that there was not a solid backing panel to the cloth which attached in there. What I had was basically a chipboard "frame" which suspended the cloth and a layer of batting around the edges which was then tacked in.
Now that I'm redoing that area permanently, I am wondering if I am missing something. Should that whole panel be backed by chipboard, cardboard, whatever you want to call it, or is it just basically like a picture frame with the material stretched taught across it? Seems to me it should be more solid. Does anyone have any experience with this, or can state whether there is a hard(er) surface behind that cloth?
Hi Jon,
My car has an original interior. I checked the rear seat area and can feel a stiff "cardboard" frame around the area you described but I also feel a material in the center of the frame that provides a padded support. If I were to describe it in terms of a modern material, it feels something like a polyester batting.
Scott
Jon I don't know if this is helpful or not, but in this picture you can see the wooden structure for the arm rest of a 1938 Cadillac 60S.
Jim
Quote from: LaSalle5019 on February 24, 2022, 08:37:52 PM
Hi Jon,
My car has an original interior. I checked the rear seat area and can feel a stiff "cardboard" frame around the area you described but I also feel a material in the center of the frame that provides a padded support. If I were to describe it in terms of a modern material, it feels something like a polyester batting.
Scott
Thanks again...this corresponds with what evidence I had, though it it is somewhat flimsy design in my mind. When it comes to this kind of stuff, I like to double check everything because it had gone through a "restoration" some years ago and I don't always know what I am dealing with. Whether it is factory original, or a restoration trimmers fanciful interpretation is sometimes in debate. Here are a couple of photos of what I ended up making based on the evidence I had. I replicated this panel board framework if you will, covered with wool batting as you noted, and then the fabric itself from the mess I had that came with the car. It was attached to the door frame with nail on panel clips, and presumably tacked to the arm rest and window frame tacking strip. I just had to imagine that there was some sort of more substantial backing on there, but apparently not from your observations. Also note in the photos, that there is a panel board section mounted to the body which helps support this section from the interior. I recreated it from the remnants of the original that was in the car. Like I say, it's pretty flimsy, but I guess got the job done.
This is all valuable information to me as I have had to painstakingly recreate every bit of trim work myself based on a mix of questionable previous restoration work, and some small elements of factory original parts. From what I can tell, very few car owners have ever attempted to do what I am doing so information and photos are severely lacking. The luxury of ordering a pre-made interior kit to have installed by an upholstery shop doesn't exist anymore, and quite frankly, I don't know of a shop that I could turn to that I would trust to do the job right. So I have to do it myself or it doesn't get done. So again, thanks for the observations and assistance for these little nagging details that I can't find the answers to anywhere else.
As for Jim's photos, the 38s appear to be similar in concept, but slightly different. Note the arm rest photos from my car. I was more interested in the panel above them. That being said, restoring, rebuilding, stabilizing, and recovering those arm rests has been the biggest challenge in this whole project.
Sure. Let me know if you need anything else.
Scott