I then spent an amazing amount of time trimming and gluing down bits that I hadn't noticed until I was ready to install the pinchweld (furflex/windlace). I bought the pinchweld from Basis in New Zealand.
This is the top part of the centre pillar trim showing the connector for the interior light and seat belt mounting hole. I hadn't glued it down at this point.
The lower part is in blue.
We changed fabric just level with the top part of the door linings (yet to be done). The top, grey fabric is the headlining fabric, the lower blue is the seat and door liner (yet to be done) fabric.
Having the pillar trim on allowed me to get on with installing the pinchweld - that's the stuff that clips around the body seams where the door closes. When we renewed the pinchweld on the Super Snipe we cut 45 degree angles on the right angle corners and I have never been that happy with the job. On one of the MGB forums someone had indicated that the correct way was to hammer the stuff into the corners and get as small a radius as possible - but it wouldn't be perfect. I cut of a piece and tried that and it wasn't very good. The metal parts of the pinchweld poked out through the fabric.
A note here that the cheaper plastic pinchweld is a LOT easier to install as it is quite easy to cut at 45 degrees. The "furflex" style that I have used is a metal spine with automotive fabric wrapping as you will see in the pictures.
So the technique I settled on was to unpeel the fabric partly, cut the metal at a right angle, then re-seat the fabric and cut a 45 degree angle in just the fabric. The result is great.
Here it is in picture form.
First spread the pinchweld a little and dig out the fabric - releasing it from the internal barbs.
Peel the fabric back to get it out of the way.
Snip of the metal part - I my case I need at least 12mm of fabric hanging over the end.
Re-seat the fabric (stuff it back in and ensure it gets snagged by the barbs).
Cut the fabric at a right angle 12mm from the metal (to neaten it up) then cut it at 45 degrees. MAKE SURE you get the right orientation of the angle. (Me, stuff it up first time? Nah!)
The final result - I had to lighten this picture up a lot to see the black which made the join look a lot worse than it really is.
One bit I didn't mention is that I used a permanent black marker to colour the grey lining of the fabric at the cut ends.
I haven't finished but I have made a good start and now have a system going. So far I have done both sides of the car, down the back and across the top of the rear doors.
Both Saturday and Sunday the temperature in the garage went from 12 degrees C to 14.5 mid-afternoon, then 12 again at the end of the day. It hit 12 at about 6PM both days- that's when I called it a day/night.
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