Thursday, January 05, 2012

mazda protege checkerboard shift boot and center console lid cover

If you go back to the blog I wrote on November 1, 2011, you can see the first shift boot, handle, and console lid cover I made. I liked them a lot. I had never made any of that stuff before and I was really excited how well they turned out. I just wrapped my headliner, A-pillars, B-pillars, and C-pillars in black checkerboard fabric a couple weeks ago. Now I wanted to make another set to match.

I sewed them by hand again. If I had a sewing machine I could make all kinds of cool stuff. I used my pattern I had made for the shift boot from the last time. One thing that always bothered me about the old set I made was on the handle. I didn't like how it didn't come all the way to the top. You could tell it was just fabric on top of it. While I thought it looked good, I thought it could look better. I sorted that out for the new set and I was able to cover the whole thing. This time for the center console lid cover I covered the whole thing in one piece of fabric.

Original installation January 2012






mazda protege fabric headliner, a-pillars, b-pillars, and c-pillars install

This is pretty hard. Wrapping the interior pieces was harder for me because of the checkerboard pattern. Using a solid color you would just have to worry about not getting any wrinkles. I also had to make sure when I laid down the fabric that the pattern was straight. It does matter what type of glue you use. It will sag if you use cheap glue. I used 3M Super Trim Adhesive. Then I made patterns for the sunvisors and sewed them together. I sewed them by hand. I painted the remaining trim black. I used Krylon Fusion Satin Black. If you're wondering, the thing in the middle is the sunglass holder. Working a few hours a day, it took about a week to wrap everything. The fabric is soft and it feels like suede.

Original installation December 2011