As we said before, while the style of the door panel on your car may vary from ours, the basic principles of fabricating them are all very similar. Here we’ve started our reupholstery process by duplicating the door panel on waterproof cowlboard — this might be something you’ll need to consider if your original car door panel is in bad shape like ours was. We find that the Scribe-All® Water Soluble White Marking Pencil functions perfectly to mark on this material, and it washes away easily when the marks are no longer needed. We’re then using a hole cutter, the Barry King Mallet 3# and the Sailrite® Cutting Block and Die Holder to make holes for our rivet fasteners.
In terms of vinyl upholstery fabric, you’ll want to choose one that perfectly suits your upholstery project both in looks and durability. Luckily, we offer an incredible variety of these fabrics on our website. Two of the most notable brands of vinyl upholstery fabrics are Morbern® and Naugahyde®. We’ve chosen Morbern® Seabrook Stinger and Naugahyde® Universal for their durability, easiness to clean, abrasion resistance and water resistance. But the choice is yours! If you’re unsure of what vinyl will work best for your project, it’s easy to order fabric samples off our website so you can experience these fabrics in person before embarking on your project.
This short video will detail the rest of the door panel reupholstery process. We’ve also listed the video chapters below so you can easily jump around depending on what information you need to see. How did your car upholstery project turn out? Let us know in the comments below!