Carl 61 Fleetwood Phyllis

[Clewisiii]

After a ton of cleaning

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

It is always nice to look back at what one started with, as it brings the restorations/work done into perspective.

Bruce.

[Clewisiii]

Yes.  Giving myself a little boost of encouragement. I have been pushing on several fronts to do as much as I can without spending more money this year.  But I need to spend at least $300 on materials to continue on my interior restoration.  I need panel boards and 20 point chip board. I don't need that much but minimum order quantities dictate how much I have to spend.

I try not to spend more then $5000 per year on my car.  I have already trippled that this year. 

[Clewisiii]

One comment. Years ago when I first reached out to SMS for the interior materials they said they would redo my door panels for $250 a piece.  I asked them about the metal parts that needed restoration and cleaning.  They said they would not touch them.   After opening these door panels I can tell you there is not a chance SMS would have stuck to the $250 price after seeing the condition of my doors.  And if they did I would not be satisfied with what I got back. 

[Clewisiii]

My SMS order for my headliner and extra yardage came in today. 

It looks correct.  But I want to pull out my old headliner and verify the measurements. 

They folded the headliner and left in some substantial wrinkles.   I will assume that these will relax out.  Most likely it will be two years until I use this headliner.  I will roll up the material and wrap for storage.

[Clewisiii]

Lays out perfectly over the old.   I hate rolling out that old headliner.  It required a lot of cleanup on my work table.  I need to sandblast and paint the bows and transfer to the new headliner.

[Clewisiii]

Ok I am changing something from the original.  I am testing to see if I can sew up and recover a sun visor.  The original is mainly headliner material but has a leading edge of vinyl.  The original was sewn at the edge leaving the raw edge of vinyl.  I tried that and it was very hard to keep it straight.  I think I will roll and sew as a deck seam.  I think it makes a cleaner look anyway.  I will spend a day or so testing the stitch spacing and offsets and try to wrap one of these up.

[Clewisiii]

Yes it is going to be this one. 

[Clewisiii]

I realize pulling this tight to the visor to perimeter sew will actually be tough.  Have to edge stitch while also pulling out the wrinkles.  The headliner material does not hold up to a heat gun so I cannot heat out the wrinkles. 

[Clewisiii]

But then you find something like this.  A skipped stitch.  I think I can fix it though.

[Clewisiii]

Finding these crimp on sun visor ends was actually kind of difficult.  It was not a listing I found anytime before.  Once I saw them I picked them up quick.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Good one.   Nice to have a win.

Bruce.

[Clewisiii]

Ok replicating the method of sewing on these visors is difficult.  I can see the top side so I can pull out wrinkles as I sew around the part.  But the bottom is invisible.  I can have a clean surface on one side and loose pockets on the other.  There is another way to do this. I can perimeter sew to a 20 pt chip board with the material flat first.  Then when the assembly is wrapped around the visor it will hold itself tight when I see the perimeter.  I still need to order my chip board. But I might try that.

[Roger Zimmermann]

It would be interesting to know the method used at the factory...

[Clewisiii]

They probably had a tension frame template. Mount to the visor mount on one side.  Then grab the cover sandwich and pull tight passed the needle head. 

[Clewisiii]

They probably also used a roller foot machine.  I have walking foot only.

[6caddy2]

MY wife has 40+ yrs as a seamstress, in her "garage" is 11 sewing machines, 7 are currently working and are used, ( the other 4 are awaiting minor repairs by me) but you are correct as it would be a "rolling foot" for the visors, she also commented on your sewing ability as being excellent, such as stitch length and type of thread etc..., also something about you can purchase a " wind lace" foot for a walking foot type machine, or with the machine you used, back off the thread tension a wee bit and foot pressure, and trust yourself and the machine and just feed it through, this should help as not to cause the wind lace to want to curl, and will settle in nicely as the interior ages. .

Just passing this along, this is why I stay in the garage doing the pinion seal on her Cadillac and looking for seat track covers and figuring out how to "fix" the door wiring conduits on the 62 until they are reproduced. Anyway things seem to be moving along quite nicely, I bet that garage is nice this time of year! Joe

[Clewisiii]

I was just in the garage trimming out the doors this evening.  This weekend will be another batch of 15 wall panels I hope.  However I have a plot of trees I need to cut down and I think I might work through some of those while the ground is still dry.  I have about 80 soft wood trees that are within reach of falling into neighbor's property.  I have already paid to replace fencing for a few that fell. I am not looking forward to paying for repairs of three buildings that are at risk  They were planted to close together in the 50s by my great grandfather.  They grew very tall and skinny.  But unfortunately they are weak.  I tried contacting some mills to see if anyone wanted the timber.  About 400 in total.  But due to the size and location no takers.  So I am just going to drop thrm and let them rot where they fall. But I still plan to work on my garage.  And think about my sewing methodology some more.  I have to pick up a binding attachment for the vinyl edging on the visors anyway.

[Clewisiii]

Ok one more thing I must consider. The original nap material on the visors had a non stretchable backing.  The new nap material is very stretchy.  I may need to pre glue the headliner material to a muslin fabric to make it not stretchable.

[Clewisiii]

My original floor mats.  Looking at these it is hard to believe that they were once blue.  Some day I will need to see how far I can get cleaning them.