The Upholstery Forum

When it comes to re-covering a modern dash, what approach do you take?

This dash has a gash on the passenger side just above the airbag preventing me from just covering the existing material.
With that in mind, what is the best method to remove the material?

You can’t really remove the material from modern dashes. The material and foam are bonded together. Just have to fix the gash and recover accordingly

Try covering the hole with Bondo maybe

They make an epoxy type filler for dashs that is still soft like the padded dash when set up

All good Ideas. I usually repair the hole with kitty hair filler but if you could find some sort of filler that would mimic the padded dash that would be best. Never seen that product though.
Also wrapping that dash will require a lot of seams and patience. Make sure you send the time making a good pattern.

I guess the Air Bag area is the same situation as on the seats? Trouble.

@John , how would you cover it? Would you just put vinyl over the existing material, put another pad down then vinyl over the existing material or strip it completely then pad/vinyl?

Since this is a personal car, I am debating going with leather, would I approach recovering in a different manner with leather?

@Cody , there is a way to remove the cover and pad but it is a pain in the @$$. This is a personal car so I room and time to experiment with the process. This is also one of those projects where I want to push my skills and learning to the max.

I would vinyl or leather straight on top of the existing surface. The approach would be the same with leather or vinyl.

@John,@Cale,@Cody,

Cale we are kinda doing something similar RECOVERING what a coinicidence I have to recover these and have stripped the vinyl from the backing it seems. At this point looking at this I either find vinyl in a grain that has NO backing which you might be looking at for dashes. If so what would be a brand @torriec for this like a vacumn wrap? It would be an alternative to doing your leather maybe.

@Cale

Id use a hard filler to cover /repair the hole. Start by sanding the area and trying to taper out the sanded/repaired area. I like to cover dashes with 1/8" closed cell before recovering. you can sand out basically any imperfections in it and it gives a nice feel as well. I normally use clear plastic or thicker dust cover to pattern tough areas.

BigRig wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 1:45 pm @John,@Cale,@Cody,

Cale we are kinda doing something similar RECOVERING what a coinicidence I have to recover these and have stripped the vinyl from the backing it seems. At this point looking at this I either find vinyl in a grain that has NO backing which you might be looking at for dashes. If so what would be a brand @torriec for this like a vacumn wrap? It would be an alternative to doing your leather maybe.

I would recommend something stretchy like Allsport or something thin like the Synergy Suede Contour. That's about all we have though.

Here’s a 68 Lincoln dash I just covered. Patterned with clear plastic

@jdenison89 those are really good looking!

Saw this the other day in an ad on Instagram I think. Reminds me of that stuff you get at the hardware store for filling cracks around your house lol. But maybe there’s something to it.

https://www.eastwood.com/sealant-foam-12-oz.html

@jdenison89 ,

It does look great!

@Cody That looks just like the "great stuff" expanding foam. Seems like it would work pretty well.
Thanks @BigRig

@jdenison89 ,

What do you have in store for that seat cusion in the background?

@BigRig That one, i can't remember but normally those i can repair. If its really bad ill order a replacement

@jdenison89 , due to the age of some of the ones I come across they have lost a lot of spring or density and are obsolete in some cases. It alsmost seems worthwhile trying to sculpt my own.

@John, that 06" painters tape you usewhat is it like a strip of tape with brown paper attached to it or is it a full adhesive back?