economy carpets

[Peetee]

I'm seriousy considering making my own carpets for Horace. The ones I have in Albert are good quality but a bit thin and the drivers section has a habit of moving and has become rucked and mis-shapen. Nevertheless I shall use these as a template and pick and choose some nice thick carpet from work.
The problem I forsee is deterioration of the edges. Traditional edge binding is expensive and would probably result in a bigger bill than buying a bespoke set so, is there an alternative way to prevent the edges of carpets fraying?

[polo2k]

if your using a syntheic carpet you might be able to seal the edges with a soldering iron or heat gun

[charlie_morris_minor]

I used a strip of vinyl cloth around the edge..

I shaved the edge of the carpet off, sewed a piece on, folded it over the edge and sewed it again... I did it all by hand.. i can find some pics if you are interested and try and give better instructions..

[Peetee]

That would be great, cheers.

[charlie_morris_minor]

unfortunately the only photo I have is of the finished carpet so.. i will need to describe what i did, the only bits i bothered to edge were the floor carpets not the sill / inner wing carpets which are glued in place...please feel free to ask questions i might not explain things clearly enough..

1. Cut the carpet to shape and trial fit
[frame][/frame]

2. I shaved around the edge of the carpet about 1.5cm I seem to recall..by this i mean i shaved the carpet fibres off to leave just the backing material ( brown bit in the picture)
[frame][/frame]

3. I then cut a few 6 cm wide strips of vinyl
4. I marked a line on the reverse side of each strip of vinyl, 1 cm in from the edge
5. I then placed the vinyl strip on the front face of the carpet so that i was looking at the reverse of the vinyl and the shag pile of the carpet.
[frame][/frame]

6. Then line up the 1 cm line on the vinyl with the shaved edge of the carpet, i.e. you will have a 0.5 cm of the carpet backing material visible
7. Sew the vinyl as close to the shaved edge of the carpet as you can.
8. The fold the vinyl over on itself and then under the carpet.
9. then sew between the edge of the carpet and the edge of the vinyl and pickup the vinyl which is underneath..
[frame][/frame]

simple isnt it..

[joeone62]

I too made them myself, I'll try to get some picture, the difficult parts are those arround the hand brake. I also used velcro to keep the carpets in place and to connect the pieces to each other, and it works rather well.

[charlie_morris_minor]

if you replicate the original the handbrake carpet it is straight forward, i seem to recall it only needs a few stitches at the front that go under the handbrake bit

[grumpygrandad]

I BOUGHT A CHEAP SET THATS ON EBAY THERE ACTUALY NOT BAD I KNOW THERE NOT WILTON BUT FULL 10 PEICE SET AND FIT FAIRLY WELL AND LOOK GOOD AROUND 30 QIUD..WORTH A LOOK..GRANDAD

[d_harris]

Pete, I have some light blue carpet that you can have, its not a full set but its got both driver and passenger footwell and rear footwell pieces, might save you a little bother?

Light blue might work quite nicely for Horace

[MarkyB]

I'd be laughing if I had a Blue car, not Green.
Blue is the colour that the University I work at uses for all their carpet.
Not luxurious, but very tough indeed.

[Peetee]

Thanks Dan but I'm all sorted now. Bit the bullet and ordered from ESM. Had looked into getting an offcut from work but pale blue without a hint of green is very hard to find. One did pop up but it was top quality and megabucks so that put me off a bit. I've gone for the lesser quality, cheaper carpet option but I will be using underlay and rubber overmats so that should do the job nicely.