Have you ever wondered how automotive carpet is molded to fit onto a vehicle’s floorboard so perfectly? Well then check out these two videos that show step-by-step how it’s done!
The first video, courtesy of Australian aftermarket carpet manufacturer Knox Auto Carpets, demonstrates the manufacturing process of heating a flat piece of carpet to the proper temperature and sandwiching it into a mold of the vehicle’s floorboard. A minute later the carpet has cooled and is removed from the mold. After a quick trim and binding the carpet is ready for installation.
The second video, courtesy of by French manufacturer MIB Hydro, follows the same process but on a more industrial scale, with machinery that requires much less human interaction and is capable of more intricate impressions.
Fortunately, auto upholstery shops like ours don’t need to invest in such expensive machinery because for most vehicles molded carpet is readily available through OEMs and the aftermarket. However, seeing how vehicle carpets are molded sheds new light on one of the many products we deal with daily.
Both methods have the same principles: firstly, heating the carpet to soften the ‘rubber like’ on wrong side of carpet and secondly, immediately mold it with ‘two big dies'(male and female).
‘Standard carpet’ behaves different (no stretchy) and we can not mold it this way, so, it should be trimmed and adjusted the way the upholsterers know.
Thanks Nassem/Nadeem, for the effort to keeping us informed.
Thanks Cesar
Fun to see the process and machinery used in mass production of things. Sometimes a customer can not understand why you cant make something the same way it is from the “factory”. Not that I even want to because that is just not my thing, but still fun to learn things! Never know where you might be able to apply the same concepts on a different scale. I was just watching some videos of vacuum/heat forming of plastics and vinyls… Fun stuff
Well said Isaac. I completely agree!