To Flock or not to Flock

[peteh1969]

Now I have made an effective repair to the dash pad for my Corsair, there is no easy way to reinstate the texture on the dash pad without causing a lot of damage to the plastic covering.

I have a decision to make and as I'm not looking for a do it either way decision, I would like to hear some advise/opinions?

The dash without the wood trim fitted.

 As you can see from the pictures above when the wood trim is fitted it is a very neat tight fit to the dash (not much space) to cover the repair I have thought of the following:

1: use an adhesion promoter and paint the dash pad with a good satin black paint.

2: flock the dash after applying the adhesion promoter (with black flock).

3: have the dash pad professionally covered in Ford period vinyl material and sand the edge faces of the wood trim to allow a good fit.

All three have there good points and two of them would be a cheap cost answer, but could potentially look terrible very easily and one that would not be cheap but look better than factory.

What experiences have others had with a similar problem and what solutions were used to overcome the problem?

All responses appreciated?

[Ritchie]

Option 3 for me I think.
I was going to say option 1 but you will probably see the different texture of the repair through the paint, how noticiable this will be is a bit of an unknown.
IMO flock only looks good in modified interiors, I think it would look out of place in yours.
I've no real experience of any of the above but if thin, high quality vinyl was used I'd say option 3 would be your best option.

[tristanh]

Pete, everything else is so nice and period looking, I don't think flock would suit it, especially not being a competition car.

[BenzBoy]

Trimmer here, it's got to be Option 3, the retrim, if budget allows (I would say that, wouldn't I?). Flocking is next best option, but like tristanh said, it's not very period looking. Also the flock looks very black, which can make nearby black vinyls and plastics look rather faded or washed out. Painting it just won't look right in my opinion, you'll be able to see the non-textured areas of filler, and there's a chance that the dash will split in other areas in the future.

A decent trimmer should be able to modify the panels to account for the extra thickness of the vinyl so you get a good fit.

[steveo3002]

that can be repaired to invisible

repairers spray on some thick paint type stuff then press a silcone mold with the texture onto it , back in the day i worked at car dealers when all the stereos were being stolen and saw many dashes get repaired that way

[steveo3002]

this sort of thing...not saying i could do it , but certainly is mobile guys that do it

[peteh1969]

Steveo

I do know about the re graining a leather repair and have used it to repair a cut on the leather part of the drivers seat on my ST but that wont work in this case as it's 53 year old hard brittle plastic and it would never be invisible repair.

[bazzateer]

Re-trim

[gtviva]

Option 3 for me, I think it would be an easy dash to cover using the correct material, looking at the shape I don't even think there would be any stitching involved?

[pittaway]

re-trim, hard work now will make you look back and be glad you did it

[peteh1969]

Yesterday afternoon I had a call from the trimmers to say the dash was ready for collection so this morning I drove over to collect it and I must say I'm very pleased with it.

After having the trimmers recommended by samta22 and knowing that WoodyMercW114 has had a lot of work done buy www.bespokeleathering.com I had now worries in letting John the proprietor strip and recover my Corsair dash pad for me.

As you can see it will look great when fitted which I will do over the next few days.

Thank you all for your opinions and input.