And interesting video on upholstery

[ydeardorff]

After being sent this video, I thought I would share.

What I found the most interesting was the material used in it. Its called closed cell foam pvc. My guess is its stronger than conventional foam, and more like a plastic board.

This is where rick should chime in. I hear this is often used in Sign shops.
What Im curious is how easily this can be shaped, and how strong it actually is.

How to build a custom center console - YouTube

This might be a good material for many of us to use in our interior work if its not too expensive, or difficult to use.

 

[Peter]

Loved the video, The plastic is great in as much as you can form it into curves and I guess with a bit of heat one could 'form' it into bumps and curves too. I'll stick with the 3mm ply as we have ambient heat issues and the wood is more stable and vinyl, as leather will shrink in the heat, my original dash top was black suede and it ended up a hard, shrivelled lump off brown junk, top of my Mercedes 190 black leather door cards shrunk away at the tops too. But I use much the same method, pair of sides, then cross braces and shelves, then cover and fit out, mostly 'on the fly'.
Currently halfway with mine.

 

[letterman7]

Yep, built lots of stuff out of PVC. It looks like he's using 1/2" all around. The nice thing about it is you can shape it within reason by heating (the thinner, the easier to shape), the bad thing is if you're in a hot climate (say, Arizona), the same heat in the car from the sun will want to make the board go back to it's original shape. I can see some buckling happening on those long boards between the seats in that video if he doesn't cross-brace it more. Still, for small stuff it's a very viable material to use. Check out any home building materials supplier for Azek - a higher density PVC than even the sign shops can get (which I use almost exclusively) and is used for home trimwork on the outside of the house.

 

[RangerBEH]

Very cool. I'll have to do some homework. If you can assemble the components to make something even close to the video it would really change the look of the tunnel. *thumbs up* I've nene trying to find a way to run the console up under the flat dash, l like the slider idea be nice if I could hide the ebrake.