The Upholstery Forum

I am working on my 1957 wagon and I want to cover the inner fender wells in the back of the wagon with vinyl. Will regular vinyl (as apposed to 4 way stretch) stretch enough to do this without some sort of seam. Also do you use scrim foam on this? Closed cell foam? No foam? I have attached a photo of the bare fender wells, a photo of a car with a seam, and a photo of a car without a seam. How do I go about this? Thank you!

Personally, I would build a box of some sort to go over those wells instead of applying materials directly to the sheet metal. Could even make a fiberglass mold if you've worked with it before. Otherwise, I would cover them in closed cell foam, sanded smooth. Then do a wrap with a seam so there isn't much fighting with the stretching on those curves. Its just helps to reduce any damage to the closed cell foam if you need to reposition the vinyl during install.

I think you would be able to cover them with out a seam. It may difficult but its possible. Steam is you best friend when wrapping shapes like that. Make sure you have a good steamer before trying to cover those. I would cover with 1/8" closed cell first.

Thank you so much for the reply. I do have a good steamer and really was hoping that we could make it work without a seam. I will let you know how it goes!

before you start gluing it down I like to lay the fabric over the area being covered, see where the problem areas will be and come up with a plan of attack. Figure out where to stretch the fabric so that it helps you. I'm pretty sure you will want to pull a stretch along peak of the radius and then work you way up and down from there.