leather on soft top lid

[Steve]

I'm in the process of redoing the interior of my car with a leather and carpet set from GAHH, and I have a couple of questions concerning the horseshoe shaped leather on the soft top lid:
1) How thick is the foam under the leather?
2) Is the leather glued to the foam, or just pulled tight and glued to the metal at the bottom edge?
3) Should the leather be "skived" (scraped thinner) to fit the curve?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Steve

[66andBlue]

I have used 3 mm thick foam, >1/8" - don't make it thicker since the foam is used only to prevent the leather sticking to the painted metal.
Glue the foam to the metal, not to the leather, and I believe that it does not go all the way to the outer perimeter.
Use a mister and spray some distilled water on the leather inside and stretch it around the curve. You can use a hairdryer and carefully heat up the leather when secured in place to get out small wrinkles.

P.S. make sure you use high-temperature foam, those lids can get very hot in the sun!

[Steve]

Thanks Alfred. This is will be my second attempt - the first time I made the mistake of glueing the leather down, which of course prevented it from stretching properly when I reached the corners.
I picked up a skiving tool today... dash is next!
Steve

[66andBlue]

Steve,
I have never had much luck with skiving tools, most of them are made to be used with skin before tanning.
Try using a soft sanding pad (I use the rectangular ones with different grids on each side) to make the leather thinner.  But unless your leather is really thick it is usually sufficient to make it wet (from the backside!) and it will stretch easier.

[230slhouston]

Steve,
Alfred is correct, use a 1/8 inch thick foam. I am just tinkering with my interior and using MB-Tex from World Up. My original was leather but to make sure I can get it right, I am doing one round with MB-tex. I also bought the foam form World Up.

I sprayed the lid with 3M adhesive first then stuck on the foam. Adhesive on one side only. It does not go over the lip and fold with the leather. On the lid, the only other place you would put a thin and narrow bit of adhesive on the diagonal on the 90 degree area. I found that if I did not, it will stretch an this is the only point that did not sit flat.

I tackled my dash this weekend and the job turned out pretty good. Now for the assembly

Cheers
Maistran.