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

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Wow almost 3 months! Anyways...
I had a truck step on my foot (metaphorically speaking) and needed to set this aside for a minute.
If anybody is still interested I'll try to continue here in the next week or so?
 
Wow almost 3 months! Anyways...
I had a truck step on my foot (metaphorically speaking) and needed to set this aside for a minute.
If anybody is still interested I'll try to continue here in the next week or so?
Git-er-done :thumbsup:
 
keep on truckin' . and back in the '70s some dudes glued shag carpet to the entire interior!
Where did that comment come from? LOL Did I tell people what I was going to put on here for material? I didn't read back through the whole thread.
 
Okay I've decided to turn full attention back to this headliner which means things are going to happen. I'm doing the reconfiguration of the duster on the racer part of the Forum butt this is a whole little project of its own so basically I'll just snap a picture and say done on that part of the forum. But I'll try and get a little more step by step on this thread. Right now I have everything ready for my final fit with the headliner before I actually glue material to it. I've been looking for all the screws for the Plastics and making sure they're all going to fit in place properly with the proper screws when the headliner does go up. Again this hasn't had an interior in it probably for the 4 years I've had it and could have been many years before that. I was going to take some of my samples down to Ace Hardware and duplicate some of the screws but now that I think about it I have a big box full of this kind of crap and I better look through it before I start spending money or else I've wasted my time storing it all this time. I'll hang close to this thread till it's done.
 
Got all new screws. Got the four Plastics cleaned and ready. Painted the metal trim above the doors. Did a final test fit and trim on the headliner shell. Instead of trimming the corners to butt into each other I overlap them and riveted them to keep the contortion of the headliner. Clamped it at both ends and folded in half to apply the adhesive. Looks great in person.
Tomorrow I'll roll, trim, and glue the edges.
I also tapped off the rear fold down seat to paint the metal parts of it.
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What you can't see and I haven't said is it's fake beaver skin, being that we are in the beaver state (not the rainbow state triple-R)
The theme on the car is a 1978 customization. We're definitely talking the Disco era. Of course I didn't put shag carpet up there or really hairy fuzzy fur, but a very shallow soft luxurious feel.
Check it out when I stroke it backwards!
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I told my wife everything's great until the glue starts losing its hold in the summer and we got 300 thumbtacks holding it off of our head LOL
 
I would think if someone want to do something really cool and custom with embroidery they could draw something really cool backwards on the backside of it. Drill little holes every half inch on the design and stick studs through the other way. And maybe have a big Chrome studded design up in the ceiling like maybe a big Mopar M or something? Which in turn would probably help hold the material up.
 
At an AA meeting if a guy was to come to the door with a pill and say if you take this pill it will cure your alcoholism! I would be the one in the back that asks what happens if you take two???
 
So now the car becomes a nice place to set this. I put a sheet over the roof of the car and of course the headliner conforms nicely. Now I'll trim it an inch back from the edge and use some contact cement and clamp it Over the Edge by an inch all the way around.
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Completely done and 100% installed. I feel it looks great and I hope it lasts a long time LOL. I couldn't be any happier with the results. Actually if this was refined a little bit and I was able to ask for whatever material I wanted, I would have been happy paying well over $200 for it.
Again the material I picked out looks in pictures as if there's imperfections that really aren't there. It's really how the lighting and and reflections make the material look in a picture.
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I would have liked to concluded this with the total for cost. That really I think again it was like $15 for the wood maybe another 15 for the glue if you want material and however much material is. Cost me a little bit of money for some rivets and of course I went down and bought all the correct screws. But again if you're just a guy who has a broken up ugly headliner my question is why? When you can have a nice custom one built out of your old one within a couple few days. In your spare time! I've pretty much laid out everything that I can. If anybody ever has any questions of course and always will and answer. Pip pip and cheerio!
 
Just quoting you guys making sure you're seeing this finished product..
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.
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.
This is all good to know as I will leave mine the hell alone even if it is a bit scarfy
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 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
Like the other guy said, "bedliner"!!!!!!!
I had my old one recovered by a friend that does interiors for $0. He used a modern foam backed black cloth that has tiny lines in it. I think it came out great as is a better insulator. I also insulated the roof with reflective foil sound deadener.

The second one I did myself (different car) using 3M headliner spray glue, and foam backed material off of EBAY. The only hard part was removing all the loose foam from the old cardboard and fixing the corners which had water damage. 6 years later it still looks fantastic. So don't be afraid to tackle this job. You can do it!
 
I'm not a huge fan of the material choice, but it looks great!
I didn't think it was going to appeal to a lot of people. But I can tell if I use a material that please the masses more I'm absolutely positive it would have looked great. Let alone a second try at it with a better template.
All in all it looks like it can be done.
 
Hey, you did it! Nice job. What are you doing for a dome light? The LED festoon bulbs work great!
Right now I'm more interested in finding the little lens cover, but that could be because I hardly ever drive it at night also. It's more of a cosmetic thing than a function.
 
Remember I could have went 10 Times Crazier LOL
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But they had plenty of things for the stock look...
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Black with a foam backing.
 
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