Another winter job I’ve started working on is redoing the interior door cards and other areas that are covered in vinyl. I’m debating what product to use at this point for the backing. Certainly the old cardboard materials used during the 60’s had many problems, soaking up moisture being one of them. I’ll likely either use ABS which is expensive up here or corrugated plastic similar to what you find on election signs. We just had an election, I should have “borrowed” some of them. My preference is the ABS.
I purchased some good quality vinyl from a fabric store here in town that I’ll use for the covering. Whether I’ll try to recreate the piping on the door cards I don’t know. With my mediocre sewing skills I might pay for them to be done. The other option is to reuse the existing door cards but they are very dry and not in great shape.
Another option for backing is aluminum. This is what I used for backing in areas of the Lotus Europa and it’s a great material to work with. What aluminum has going against it is cost and I expect it weighs more than ABS as well. It certainly is a stiff product however and doesn’t rust or absorb water.
I’ll post an update once I get going on the project.