can/has it been done?? home made headliner...

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j par

j par

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As many may know I have a 73 Duster. I'm of course willing to give it a shot. My mind keeps telling me that the simple cardboard cannot be rocket science and it can be reproduced in some way or fashion. Of course I don't want no crappy piece of junk. If at worst scenario by the end of this thread I will have at least exhausted a few tries before my cheap-*** can Fork out hundreds of dollars for a nice one that I have to trim anyways to fit ! Anyways I was hoping that if someone was able to actually reproduce the cardboard or I don't know I was thinking of a very thin plywood in a three-piece fashion? Of course covered with material. I don't know? I would like to find out if anybody has giving it a good college shot and got good results? Of course pictures are always great. Thank you....
 
It's a great big piece of special paper/cardboard/ etc. laminated or painted to give it a texture and then die cut on a really big clicker press. It's also got to bend and curve to fit the contour of the roof and to meet up with the creased edges. Unless you're seriously into origami and have pro upholstery skills I'd ask a local car upholstery shop what they'd charge, if for nothing else than to get an idea of the work involved. I'd wager they'd charge as much or more as just buying one. Short of that I'd try to find a used one and cover it will some new material. Or sell some stuff from your spare parts bin(?) to just buy a new one. Another alternative might be to put a cloth one back in it, if the sill area was made to accept the clips that held the bows in place. Not sure if once they went to cardboard liners if they stopped punching those holes for those bow fasteners.
 
airgrabber said:
It's a great big piece of special paper/cardboard/ etc. laminated or painted to give it a texture and then die cut on a really big clicker press.
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This...
It's layers of paper and foam. I repaired mine with craft foam and paper bags. Pretty sure they press formed it as it was laminated to hold the shape. After repairing damage I covered mine with headliner material from fabric store.
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Bed line the inside of the roof. Only your hair dresser knows for sure.

The compound curvature of the pressed paperboard composite headliner is a mo fo. It takes steam, precuts, and forms to get the shape right without wrinkles.
 
I've got a few weeks before I make my attempt. This is all good stuff...
 
I took a very beat up factory hard board headliner and with Duct tape and other methods of red neckery I fixed it up to the point that once I covered it with cheap black upholstery vinyl, it looked really good. The only down side is that when I attempted to install it, I realized it was for a Dart (square roof) and I have a Duster. Didn't fit after all that. If you can find any type of an original headliner, in decent to poor condition, you can do the same. The vinyl was about 30 bucks and a can of spray adhesive was about 15. That's all I had invested so I don't feel bad that it still hangs on my garage wall!

Cley
 
I think I have about 3/4 of the very warped original. I'm hoping enough for a template. It'll be getting dug out of storage in a few weeks after I tackle some issues up front in the motor compartment and suspension and.......lol
89on35s said:
I took a very beat up factory hard board headliner and with Duct tape and other methods of red neckery I fixed it up to the point that once I covered it with cheap black upholstery vinyl, it looked really good. The only down side is that when I attempted to install it, I realized it was for a Dart (square roof) and I have a Duster. Didn't fit after all that. If you can find any type of an original headliner, in decent to poor condition, you can do the same. The vinyl was about 30 bucks and a can of spray adhesive was about 15. That's all I had invested so I don't feel bad that it still hangs on my garage wall!

Cley
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The best part of repairing mine was the spot where it was pretty obvious that the passenger's head cracked a big hole in the headliner. I'm sure there was a good story behind that one!

Cley
 
Hopefully it was a foot in the air LOL :thumbsup:

89on35s said:
The best part of repairing mine was the spot where it was pretty obvious that the passenger's head cracked a big hole in the headliner. I'm sure there was a good story behind that one!

Cley
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I put a fair amount of thought into that subject before I painted the heck out of my cardboard liner with flat black using a roller.
I was thinking that house siding insulation foam boards, contact cement and my heat gun.
Then cover the foam with that thin netting backed foam rubber material they use for upholstery once the foam was up, and material over that.
The foam rubber reinforced with netting should hide the seams in the foam.

A good insulation between me and the metal was also a priority living in AZ.

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I bought the plastic headliner as I didn't have the time to much around with trying to make a cardboard one. It can be done.. Look online as the plastic ones and it'll help you with where to place relief cuts.

I'm planning to cover mine with thin insulation foam (1/8 or 3/16") and then black vinyl or suede.

Riddler
 
I got a chance to clean the shed out and get some parts ready to go. One of them was the remains of the headliner. I'll save everybody from smacking their forehead by not posting a picture. It's pretty bad. I do have 90% of it but I am missing both the front Corners as if someone didn't take the the visors out and ripped it from there.
 
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Okay this is my biggest challenge my reconfiguration of the car. Everything else is just paint or bolt-on in sand or something like that but this is total fabrication. I researched some of my materials at Home Depot like maybe trying some ultra thin plywood And my idea was to make all four separate pieces and connect them together with some kind of hinging process. Now I know this will make a heavier crease at the control joint areas but I don't mind them or squared off look. As long as it looks good. Of course it'll be covered with the fabric of some kind so I'm sure a lot of imperfections can be hidden. I was at JoAnn Fabrics looking at the headliner material and then I turned and seen the fux beaver skin! What is wrong with my brain!?
 
j par said:
Depot like maybe trying some ultra thin plywood
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Among other things you will need to figure out... The original compresses down to very thin and bends/forms where it goes in the side moulding, under visors and mirror etc. A hard board may crack if it works at all in those spots.
Have you tried to locate a used one? As long as its near complete and not severely warped, probably a lot less work to repair one. I'm very much a DIY penny pincher, but if I was not able to repair mine or find one, this is one part where I think I would have dug deep and bought one.
 
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It wouldn't surprise me one bit if I didn't end up buying one. I've got to give it a try though I've got to get this out of my system. This is kind of what the cars for anyways, it's just for my hobbies and to just kind of have fun being creative.

zkx14 said:
Among other things you will need to figure out... The original compresses down to very thin and bends/forms where it goes in the side moulding, under visors and mirrors etc. A hard board may crack if it works at all in those spots.
Have you tried to locate a used one? As long as its near complete and not severely warped, probably a lot less work to repair one. I'm very much a DIY penny pincher, but if I was not able to repair mine or find one, this is one part where I think I would have dug deep and bought one.
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Moving forward with my crazyness...
first off I have to cut the front corners of the main center piece just forward of the visors a little extra large as I'll have to trim it back to fit as that part was lost on both sides.
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