My Interior Project (Will be updated as it progresses)

[Dragonheart]

Was looking at ways to spruce up my interior, have the red recaros, have white dials, the usual stuff, so I got some bits, thanks to Seb and Steelroe, and was going to spray them white, but then I wanted to do something different, something I havent seen on an FTO yet, so I bought some kevlar off e-bay, and got me some resin, and set to work.
After a lot of research, and careful planning with each piece as in setting out and how to go about getting the best result with the least mess and least mistakes, so far I've got a nice bit on. Nothing is totally finished, but I'm going to start this, guide if you want to call it, in the meantime anyway and regularly update it for anyone who might want to do something with kevlar or CF in the future.
So here we go;


First off I decided the bits I was going doing, and started to gather them together. (Below is what I got so far, there will be more to be done in time).



Picture of the cloth;


First I cut the cloth to an approximate shape for each piece, and then set about sticking the cloth to the relative pieces, and let it dry before trimming and the first coat of resin;

The vents for the aircon and heating;





The door handle surrounds;





The gear level surround;





The lower centre console;




Needed to make sure I understood the workings of resin then, so did a test piece, used the mitsi badge for the front bumper. Below is a pic of the 3 stages, one in each diamond of the badge, the blank piece, the cloth without resin, and the finshed product in the upper diamond;




I was happy with the result so I proceeded with the smaller parts so as not to rush into the major parts straight away in case I made a hash of it.
A light coat od resin was applied to start off with. Some of the items below with first coats on;

Gear level surround;



Lower centre console;



Gauges hood over speedometer;



Hood has to be done in 2 parts, tricky stuff. Also I found that after sticking the cloth down the edges wouldnt stick as the cloth wasnt flexible enough, so I used superglue to fix them down.

The next step for me is once the first coat of resin has dried, I'm going to trim back and tidy up the cloth some more, and apply more coats. After that its sanding and a laquer to finish.
So far I've only trimmed back one of the vents, yet to apply a second coat of resin though.

The trimmed vent;





My main concern is doing the upper centre console, the shape of it doesnt help, it looks like a 2 stage item as well but I still havent solved how I'm going to address it. But so far things have gone well for me.
As I said, I'll be updating this as I go with the progress anyway.

[TopCat]

Nice work Martin, I've done some work with this stuff, so appreciate its not easy. But you look to be making great progress with it. Can't wait to see this in the flesh, love the depth you get with real CF, and I presume it'll be the same with the kevlar.
Keep us up to date

[Sebastian]

nice kiddo looks promising. keep us posted on the results

[steelroe]

How hard is this stuff to cut and shape.

[TopCat]

In my experience, its not hard to cut, you do it with an ordinary pair of sissors. Its very flexible when it comes to shaping it, the hardest thing is just keeping the pattern nice and even, and stop the threads from unravelling. It can tend to want to flatten out a bit around tight corners until the resin sets, so the glue is probably a good idea just to hold it in place in the temporary case.
How you been finding it Martin?

[colm_mcm]

you'll have some craic fitting those heater vents. it's a dash-out job if I remember correctly.

[steelroe]

Yu are right there the vents are screw fixed on the inside of the dash.

How will the kevlar effect the refitting of the centre part of the vents.

[Dragonheart]

The kevlar is grand to work with, cutting can be tricky but with a good scissors its fine, I find modelling scalpels best though to be honest, take it nice and handy and no rushing, thats the key to it. Glue was a necessity for me though for sticking the pieces down, it wouldnt stick at all to the edges when folding cause it was just a bit too rigid, especially if a bit of resin got on it first from the sticking down phase.
The kevlar wont affect anything going back in place hopefully, its not going to be wrapped around the back of the units fully as there isnt much tolerance to play with when refitting, in most cases it'll be finished flush with the edge of the piece in question, one place it will have to wrap a bit more is for the cd player and the ashtray cause the sides can be seen when the pieces will be in place. I'll figure a way all right. The vents are probably not worth the hassle, but they definately served as sample or test pieces at the very least. Its a learning curve and I'm sure there'll be lots more problems I'll encounter along the way.

[kevinod]

Good stuff, looking forward to the result!

[power]

nice, i love it. fair play for having the guts to do it, i can't imagine it being an easy thing to undo if you don't like the end result!

[Dragonheart]

UPDATE:

Decided I'd start on the upper centre console part, will be done in 2 parts as the hood over the gauges. So far only got the first part of it secured down; (No its not a scary mask!!)





Also set about trimming the first piece of the hood I had laid down;




When that was trimmed I secured the second piece to the hood;




Then I went back to the pieces I had already started, the lower centre console and the gear lever surround. I trimmed back the cloth on both;



Then I applied the second coat of resin to each, let it dry, and decided I'd put them sort of together to see what they might come out like as a unit.
Bear in mind that final coats and sanding still has to be done along with some final touching up;

[Masa]

nice

I'd like to do something like that on mine with leather, if I can bring her with me

BTW still available if anyone on Cork is doing anything DIY.
Have to see what has to be changed on my rear suspensions and probably 2/3 small things.

[colm_mcm]

Sorry, MJ - doesn't do anything for me



fair play for doing something different though.

[Kace]

Looks a bit like snakeskin. Not for me either, although I'm sure Crocodile Dundee would love it

[Sebastian]

don't forget this is work in progress lads ..

mj can't wait to see the finished result .
did you try it on a mitsi badge ?

[CJ]

did you try it on a mitsi badge ?

Looking forward to the final result MJ, its certainly different - I'll give you that.

CJ

[Sebastian]

i must be blind

[Dragonheart]

Well I'm not expecting everyone to like it, its def a thing thats not for everyone, like a lot of mods, reason I picked the kevlar over carbon fibre, (which a lot of people have cf wrap in these locations) is cause of the colour of the seats. And the fact that its different and havent seen one with it yet.
Its hard to see what the finish is like in photos, they come out darker and not as shiny as the parts in the flesh, whatever happens it, the pieces are all spares so if I dont like it then I can just put back in the old pieces which are not modified in any way.
And at least I'll know then instead of going around wondering what it would have looked like if I had done it.
If people dont lke it then I appreciate the feedback, no point taking offence to these things, so as well as positive comments, negative ones are also welcome, (well maybe not welcome but you know what I mean), I'm even finding it hard to convince herself about it at the moment!
But as Seb says its a work in progress, and a lot of things dont look pretty till they're complete.

[Muad_dib77]

Well I think it's deadly looking.. and it's great to see somebody thinking outside the box..

The color doesn't go with everybodys seats - but I'm sure there are other colors available..

[Dragonheart]

Got a small bit more done recently, not as much as I'd hoped but not far off completion now bar final resin coats and sanding, the main pieces had the cloth applied today.


Fixed the cloth in around the cigarette lighter and put a small bit of resin on it to make it easy to trim later;


Did the same for the holes in the upper centre console;


First half of upper console trimmed, no resin applied yet;


Fitted the cloth to the second half of the upper console;


Started drilling the holes out of the gear stick surround;


Ashtray 95% complete;

[Muad_dib77]

the finish on that ash tray is pretty damn nice.. is it smooth to the touch?

[CJ]

the finish on that ash tray is pretty damn nice

+1

Looking forward to pics of everything in its finished state.

CJ

[Dragonheart]

is it smooth to the touch?

Yup it sure is, I'll need to give it one final sand down and then apply a UV resistant laquer and it'll be complete. But thats the standard of the finish I'm aiming at. Sanding it down first takes away the shine but the laquer will bring that right up again.

[Muad_dib77]

Pretty please would you mind terribly doing a "step by step" thing? I'd looove to do a few bits with some carbon-bits but I'm a bit afraid that I'd mess it up..

[Dragonheart]

No bother, I'll put something together tomorrow see if it makes sense to you.