The Upholstery Forum

The 2020 Transit Connect has these press board wooden panels which I wanted to add some diamond tucked carbon fiber to them. I order a sample of the material and started in on a single small rear door panel. As an ex-seamstress, I felt I could handle this myself. But after doing just the single panel and issues with my hands, I was forced to locate a shop to handle the other 5 panels. Ordered 5 yards of the diamond tucked carbon fiber from Fabric empire and removed all of the panels for the upholstery shop. They rushed the order because at the end of the week we're taking the van to our audio guy to have him add in a couple of new rear sliding door speakers. This means the audio guys/shop will have to cut away part of that material which the upholstery shop added a few days ago. Here's the panels off the van awaiting the audio shop's modifications.

We're pleased with how these panels turned out and although I could have done these myself, I was having trouble with the corners but the upholstery shop took care of that. With extra material left, we'll be creating a spare tire cover for the van. Once we get all the panels back, I'll need to create a vapor barrier for the rear barn doors. if one does not create this vapor barrier, the press board panels could retain moisture and start to wrap.

Here's something I've been diligently working on for months. It's not been easy for this old guy with bad hands to cut and sew this together.. But after months of labor.. here it is:



The diamond tucked carbon fiber spare tire cover has bene completed. Now onward to new projects.

nice job!

Although this is the driver side barn door, you get the idea of how we first placed the sound dampening, then using the dark grey Alcantara wrap over the sound dampening.



Just wrapping the one barn door took the wife and I 3 hours to complete.. at times, the wrap stuck to itself and made wrapping the door very difficult. Slow but sure.. we need to get the entire interior of the van wrapped before July and we've been invited to show the van at several car shows and a shock manufacture headquarters.

The new version of a van from the 70's! Curious what the finished product will look like.