I’ve covered some of the interior preparation work elsewhere on this site so this section is just for the finishing and detail.

SEAT SQUABS

With maintenance and inspections taking up so much valuable time I figure that anything I can do to safely reduce maintenance time is worthy of some thought.

Here’s a quick release system for the seat squabs - simple Press Studs.

I found this heavy duty Press Stud Kit in a local haberdashery store. It has parts for the assembly of ten studs and press tools for assembling them.

I decided on five per seat and I fixed the female part in a line along the flap of material sewn onto the bottom of the squabs.

The male part of the studs are fixed to the front sloping face of the seat wells with rivets or small nuts and bolts.

Simple, strong and very quickly removed.

The shoulder harnesses come through the seatback just below the crease , one each side of the centre hump. I didn’t much like the idea of them chafing on the glassfibre so I had a look around a local breakers yard and found these grey plastic escutcheons on a Skoda. They press into an oval hole and lock in position. Neat and tidy.

FLOCKING

From day one I thought that a Flocked finish would be the most appropriate for my ship on some of the cockpit interior surfaces.

A flocked finish is simply millions upon millions of tiny (1 millimeter long) nylon fibres standing end-on in an adhesive which is applied the the surface. The adhesive is a two part epoxy which is sprayed on. Temperature and viscosity is critical. The flock is then applied with a special applicator which generates a positive electrostatic charge on the component. The negatively charged flock fibres are attracted to the panel where the stand themselves knee-deep in the adhesive. It sounds easy but it’s taken us a few years to perfect the technique on a small scale basis. Ideal conditions are outside on a warm day with a very gentle breeze in a sheltered corner of our yard - conditions that don’t occur often in UK. We’re getting busier with dashboards and interior panels for all sorts of vehicles so a purpouse-built facility is on the drawing board.

Our method is a two-man job - one holding the component and the other applying the adhesive and flock. Matthew’s applying the adhesive here. There’s very little overspray but what there is is being carried away on a gentle breeze to the left of the picture.

Problem is, whoever is holding the component is also charged to 40,000 volts and also becomes very attractive to the flock. Guess who the lucky one is?

The flocked door liner. Flock is available in a limited range of colours. Most of our jobs call for black but I’ve mixed in a little grey with our standard black flock to give a pewter-like tint that should compliment the Lexus silver very nicely.

I intended to paint most of the interior panels in a sort of metallic Pewter colour so I mixed a shade from our leftovers cupboard. It’s pretty-much equal shares of a regular GM silver (the valence and wheel arches of my truck - see Toys & Dogs section) and a yucky Ford metallic Brown. It turned out exactly what I wanted.

My plan was to flock the instrument pod and dash-top area of the footwell panel so I painted just beyond the projected flock line.

I then masked accurately the flock line covering all exposed - non flocked surfaces of the panel. Flock gets everywhere!!

I didn’t want to overdo the flock effect so, after painting the seatback with my Pewter mix, I masked everything but the wrinkled effect areas - which I had previously flatted down. Whilst I was in the masking mood I masked and painted the rear surface of the seatback panel with VHT Black Caliper Paint. This is a tough aerosol paint that is resistant to oil, fuels and brake fluids so I though it would be a suitable, wipe-able finish for the engine bay.

Here’s my one-piece roof panel. You can see where I’ve again painted the engine bay side with the VHT paint.

And the main tub - All that masking for two tiny triangles of flock!!

And the suitcase stowage compartment - Barbie size only.

As is the case with most finishing jobs, thorough preparation is the key to success. I guess there’s almost a whole day’s work in this masking job alone.

Matthew is applying the adhesive to the Instrument pod. It’s so thick and the pressure so high that there’s virtually no overspray - no need for a mask.

Sunlight is picking up the flock texture nicely.

I made this little black Nylatron guide plate for the clutch actuator rod. It’s fixed to the seat back with small nuts and bolts. The oval shaped hole was drilled at an angle on my milling machine with a Slot Drill but it could be done by hand with a file.

Here’s the finished liner. I glued some red cloth on the inside to form pockets and secured the liners to the pillars with two countersunk screws into nut plates. You can just see one screw between the pockets on the door pillar return. I was quite prepared to add some sort of Velcro fixing at the front edge of the liners but they’re amazingly secure without it.

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