Covering tweeter pods with cloth

    In 2010 I started to create tweeter pods for my car. I really liked that black cloth called Alcantara which usually comes in Lamborghini or Audi RS series. So I thought - why couldn't I use it for my little project. When I saw the actual price for genuine Alcantara cloth I started to look for alternatives. Alcantara cloth costs about 160 $ per meter. :) Luckily I found alternative - cloth that is something similar to suede, so it looks almost as Alcantara. And it costs only 20$ per meter.

   I won't describe the steps needed to create customized tweeter pods from fiberglass since I already described it in my previous posts:
Tweeter pods: Step #1
Tweeter pods: Step #2
Tweeter pods: Step #3

   So in this post I'll write only about covering tweeter pods with cloth.

   The actual steps for applying this cloth is almost the same as in the given links above. The only thing that is different - I tried my luck in sewing.

   If you read my previous post you would already know that I'll be using two peaces of cloth which will be joined by sewing them right next to the tweeter. This is necessary because by applying only one peace there would be a lot of wrinkles.

   Since I didn't have sewing machine I tried my luck sewing by hand. I'll try to illustrate:

   In the picture above you can see how the sewing was done. The part that is in the picture vertically will be as the lower side so it won't be seen. The stitches won't be seen as well.

   It's important to put both cloth on the fiberglass trim (tweeter pod) and see that everything is ok. Than sew it together and only then glue it to the fiberglass trim. 

   Unfortunately I don't have pictures from the actual process. 

   I can only suggest to be very careful because it is very hard to sew and cut both peaces of cloth precisely. There will be wrinkles at first attempt. As you will see in the following pictures, I had wrinkles on the cloth also. Some day I'll reapply the fabric to get rid of the failures. 

   This time these tweeter pods didn't fit perfectly so I had to glue the original clips to the fiberglass trim.

Now the hardest thing was to understand - where to glue these clips. 

Clips look like this:

   In the following picture you can see the actual car front pillar and holes which are meant for the clips. 

   The next picture shows the back side of fiberglass pillar trim. 

    So how to find - where to glue the clips on the fiberglass trim?

   I used plasticine (molding clay). I put a lump of it on the back side of the trim approximately against the holes in the pillar.

   Then pressed the trim to the pillar in the position as it should be staying. Then took the trim of the pillar. In the best case, plasticine lump should stay on the fiberglass trim with a shape of the hole for clip. 

   I have illustrated it in the picture:

   The blue stuff in the picture is plasticine and the gray rectangle is shape that formed after pressing trim to the pillar. The black lines are drawn with marker so that when I remove the plasticine, I can see the place, where clip should be.

So that's it.