Re: flocking material

Posted by HH56 On 2023/3/29 10:01:59
The flocking Packard used was a mixed blend of fairly long and coarse rayon fibers. There is also a question as to how many color combinations were used over the years and did color vary by model or just year.

Identical fibers seem to be NLA today but there are places that advertise custom blends if you want to buy enough to start an assembly line. Perhaps they could come up with some kind of product to closely match the original but I doubt that even finding a decent match to the old color and size would be able to be perfectly blended well enoug to not be seen. When flocking was introduced in the late 30s Packard did offer a repair kit though so maybe I am wrong.

The largest size flocking fiber available at retail that I could find today is nylon but that is primarily sold in single color fibers. They are longer and coarser fibers than todays rayon fiber but are still smaller and finer in texture than the originals. I bought mine from Flock-It.https://www.flockit.com

If you want to figure out your mixture colors and buy more than one fiber you could probably mix your own blend or, at one time Flock-It did offer custom blends but I did not check to see if they still have that service. You might contact them and see what they say. Again, the fibers will still be a finer texture and you would almost need to do the entire trunk to have a consistent application. Even if colors match, because of the fiber size any spot repairs to the original would probably stand out as badly as trying to spot repair a damaged panel and match the old paint.

Having said that, it is a process that is relatively easy to do but kind of tedious and messy in such a large area. The tedious part is the cement dries fairly fast. Applying the cement in small enough areas to spray and embed the fibers into the cement before it dries and then going to the next spot and making sure the cement application is consistent enough to blend the next fiber application in so the stop point does not show was hit or miss. Fortunately there are a few natural points in the trunk where a seam or adjoining panel will sort of hide the break points.

Here is a small portion of the trunk showing what a single color fiber application looks like in a 47.

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