Editing Door trim -Re-trimming (section)

==Door card==

Before moving on to this next stage, clean up your work area. You're going to get the spray adhesive out in a minute, and it gets in the air and sticks to everything... (including nose hairs, you may want to wear a dust mask!)

Put a few layers of newspaper down on your work surface, it's easier to use a few layers, then you can remove a layer each time you move on to a new door card, or you may prefer to spray them outside if you have pets.
Lay the masonite on the table, with the side that the fuzzy stuff came off facing upwards.

[[image:Door card 010.jpg]]


If you're using dacron, you may need to split it. This takes a little patience, but if the dacron is too thick, it will puff the door trims out too far, and you will be left with impressions in the fabric where the window winder sits. (I learned this one the hard way, and had to start all over again)

If you're using thin foam, you should be good to go.
Put your dust mask on (if you have one) and spray the masonite. It doesn't need to be soaked, just spray enough on there to tack the dacron/foam in place.
Lay the dacron/foam over the masonite, and squash it down. If you've used too much adhesive, it may seep through, so try not to go overboard with spraying.
Once you've attached the dacron/foam cut around the edges. Give the top side of the dacron/foam a light spray of glue.
Remove a layer of newspaper so you've got a clean work surface again.

[[image:Door card 011.jpg]]


Lay your fabric with the underside facing upwards. Lay the door card on the fabric, and cut around it, make sure that you leave enough to fold and staple. On the first door card, I recommend that you leave more overhang than you really need, by the time you move on to the others you'll have a better idea of how much overhang is actually needed. If you cut the fabric with a tiny overhang, the fabric could start to fray while you're working with it, and you don't want this to happen. A large overhang is fine, nobody will see it.

[[image:Door card 012.jpg]]


Now that you've cut around the edges, turn the door card back over so it's fabric side up. Grab the vinyl capping , and check out where it sits... you need to make sure you don't put any staples in the area which will be visible below the vinyl capping. Start in the middle, and staple towards the edges all the way along the top, keeping tension on the fabric as you go. (If you have stretchy fabric, just try to keep it flat, you don't want it to stretch at this stage.)
Be aware that if you don't use spacers when stapling the top section, the staples will poke through, but that's fine, nobody will see the back of the door.
Turn it back over again, and now the tedious part begins.

Fold the overhang up and over to check where you need to put the adhesive. Smear some contact adhesive along the bottom of the door, and let it get tacky.  The adhesive is important at this stage, if the staples are the only thing holding the fabric in place, they could eventually move around and pop out, and you'd have to go through this all over again! Be sure to use glue in conjunction with the staples. When the adhesive is tacky, it's time to grab your spacers and your staples.
Starting in the centre, pull the fabric so that it's taut, (you want it to be firm, but not over stretched), and start stapling. I left the little black studs which press into the door frame in place for this process. If you remove them, you could end up covering the holes where they sit. Lift the fabric, check where the studs sit, you may need to cut around them as shown below.  

[[image:Door card 013.jpg]]


When you've finished stapling the bottom section, move on to the sides. Same process as above, glue and staple ths sides. When you've done that, you should have something that looks like this:

[[image:Door card 014.jpg]]


Carefully cut the dacron/foam out from all the areas where it's visible. You will need to pay particular attention to the hole where the window winder sits. If there is too much padding near the window winder hole, you won't be able to push the window winder back on far enough for the clip to engage, and your window winders will pop off while you're driving along. 

When you've cleared out all the holes, it's time for more cutting. I used a farily delicate fabric, and was worried that it might fray if I tried to jab a knife/scissors through it at this stage, so I went into the kitchen, got a metal skewer, turned the stove on, put an oven mitt on, heated up the skewer, and melted a hole into the centre of each section which was going to be cut. 

You're up to the finishing stages now, so you want to pull everything as tight as you can. 

The rectangle holes where the door handle and courtesy lights sit should be cut diagonally from corner to corner. You will need to lift the existing foam around the door handle with a hobby knife so you can get your fabric to sit beneath it as shown below. Glue and staple. 

[[image:Door card 016.jpg]]


With the speaker hole, poke your scissors through the hole you melted in the centre, and cut towards the edge of the speaker hole so you end up with lots of little flaps of fabric that look like a sliced pizza. Fold them back one at a time, each time moving to a slice diagonally oposite to the one you just finished to keep the tension as even as possible. Glue and staple, then cut off the daggy bits. 

[[image:Door card 015.jpg]]

You will also need to put tiny snips where the speaker screws sit. I cut some small bits of tape and taped the bits of fabric around the hole to stop the screws from pulling on the fabric.
It's OK if the tape goes around to the front, providing it's only a small amount, it will be covered by the speaker surround.

[[Image:Door card 019.jpg]]


The holes where the arm-rest screws on don't need to be cut/glued/stapled. The smaller the hole, the fiddlier the stapling job. The tape & melt option was much easier.
I put some gaffer tape over the holes, pushed the tape down firmly onto the fabric, and used the hot skewer to melt clean circles in these 2 holes. Without the tape, the fabric could fray, or it could easilly become snagged on a screw and stuff up all your good work when you get to the final assembly stage.


The fabric near the courtesy light started to fray because the cuts were tiny, so I taped those up too, but there was an additional reason for the tape in this case. You will need to melt the holes where the courtesy light sits, this will weaken the tiny fabric flaps even further, so just tape them up to save any hassles.

[[image:Door card 017.jpg]]