How To Make Your Own Door Panels

Car door panels can be expensive depending on the vehicle make and model.

How to make your own door panels.

I marked the line where it needed to be on the panel itself. It s as simple as picking up a 4 ft 1 2 m x 8 ft 2 4 m sheet of 1 2 in 1 3 cm plywood and cutting it to correct dimensions. Each of our panels will be 12 feet by 3 feet 3 7 meters by 9 meters. My door panels use a piece of stainless trim that i wanted to use to separate the smooth vinyl from the rolls pleats.

The benefit of these doors is that they are cheap stable and easy to paint. Building new panels also gives you the option of using higher quality materials. I started with the rolls pleated material. Mark simpson demonstrates on a 1962 oldsmobile door panel how to create custom car door panels using abs board and pre sewn top stitch panels from ez boy interiors.

For most classic car restorers sewing together upholstery is an unlearned skill. Do it yourselfers can build their own panels with a few power tools and glue. Cut two pieces of 1 by 2 inch wood studs to the width of the door less 2 inches 5 centimeters. If you like you can use your scrap plywood to cut stiles a center panel or other accents to give your handcrafted door a little extra visual appeal.

Very important that this line is accurate on all 4 pieces. When removing the old panels be sure to remove all staples and hang on to the clips. Make three panels each measuring the width of the door by the height obtained in step 2. Try making your own door.

But using some readily available components you can achieve professional looking results. Most factory cardboard panels have long since rotted away or are warped beyond. Most interior doors today are made from a material called masonite which is a kind of wood fiberboard that is steam cooked and pressure molded onto a thin wood frame to create a slab door that has an appearance of a door with rails stiles and panels. Hollow core doors are well suited to houses where there is little chance of punching a hole through with a piece of lumber.

The advantages are that i could make it any way i wanted and it would be a very solid durable door ideal for the rough shop environment. These will allow the door to roll freely. However with a little instruction and a broad selection of car interior upholstery parts the task is made easier than you might think. Door panels can be a real pain to build when you consider the types of materials available in sheet form.