The Upholstery Forum

so I recovered my sons headliner this weekend. Question for the experts.. the original headliner was made of foam backed fabric and a glued mesh type of fiberglass as the base formed structure. The fabric and foam had already delaminated leaving the fiberglass material. I glued the new headliner material to this and it shows most of the uneveness. What would have been the best way to prep this for a smooth finish?

Yea the fiberglass with mesh type is a real pain in the neck. You must be extremely gentle when removing the old material and prepping the board. Yours looks good for a DIY job, and although it has a few bumps I have seen worse come out of supposed professional shops. Try steaming it to help soften the imperfections.

Yeah like @frankscustomupholstery said those headliner types are really bad to work with. There are 2 options I recommend to avoid this. If you can buy a new headliner board this is the best option.
1. Glue down a layer of 1/8 inch closed cell foam and sand out all the imperfections leaving a smooth surface.
2. If your looking for perfection you would have to lay fiberglass resin down and create a smooth surface using body filler.

Thanks gentlemen. The majority of the imperfections or balancing out for the most part. I’m learning more every day.

As long as you can get the headliner stripped down to the fiberglass you should be golden. I use a wire brush and/or wire wheel to remove the degraded foam backing.

Sometimes the bottom of a broom or a old rag is abrasive enough to remove the sticky foam layer. Really anything works.

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Yeah that type of fiberglass would have been nice. I was dealing with what I can describe as glued and compresses fiberglass insulation type material. Nothing really substantially firm about the sub structure. Yours looks as if it cleaned up nicely.