Hey folks, does anyone know someone in California (ideally the Bay Area) who restores door panels for a '68 Corvette? Any leads would be appreciated!

 

I think you should call Al Knoch. If you want to restore your original door panels, you can discuss the feasibility of this with him. Myself, I'd just buy a pair of his reproduction panels. I think they'll be a high fidelity recreation of the original, including the same materials for the door panel substrates. The original panels had a paperboard like material for the substrate, which....my opinion.....is the preferred material. Most repro door panels use a vacuum formed plastic substrate which can deform, change shape after the plastic substrates are removed from the mold. I bought several items from him and I've been very impressed by the quality and fidelity of his pieces. I know that for some items, he uses the original factory molds and processes to manufacture his parts.

https://alknochinteriors.com/product...door-panels-pr

 

You could try Just Dashes in CA. They do great work, but they are not inexpensive. Cheaper to buy a set of repos. Jerry

 

Boy, that’s the truth!
They are fairly close to me and I called for my 68 door
panels and they wanted around $2000 per panel if I recall correctly.

I just bought the Al Knoch panels for my 69 and they were beautiful and fit great.
fyi, 4th of July sale with 15% off

 

If they are not "badly" damaged, do it yourself. If they ARE badly damaged, replace them. Do some research on this forum [SEARCH function] to see how others have refurbished door panels. Most of such work is not that difficult. The 'learning curve' is the biggest issue, and you can minimize that by utilizing the "past" efforts of others that are posted in this Forum.

 

I’m in the process of restoring a set of door panels for my 1969. I chose to go this route (over a set of restoration door panels) for a number of reasons; they were original to the car and most certainly fit, I preferred the original construction over the current (plastic backed) version, the original Velcro tabs grip better than the current replacements, and I wanted to see if I could do it (just to satisfy my own curiosity). The panels themselves were probably borderline on what could be saved, but to this point, my fixes appear to be successful. The repaired panels are currently at Al Knoch’s to be recovered and I’m anxious to get them back to see how they turned out. You can visit my Facebook page (Stan’s Corvette Restoration) and follow along with my repair process if you would like more detail.

If you choose to use Al Knoch, they offer several different options; their “standard” reproduction door panels themselves (plastic backing), a reproduction panel that uses the original cardboard backing, and they can restore your originals panels (if they are in good shape). Lots of choices for sure!

Regards,

Stan Falenski

 

Stan, you were wise to have a pro re-skin your door panels. I actually tackled that job myself...many moons ago...and vowed to NEVER do that job again. I was reasonably successful; but that was the MOST STRESSFUL restoration job I've ever done.

P.S. Just fixing the damaged door panels and recoloring them is NOT stressful at all, and usually yields favorable results. The panels I refurbed had major cracking and damage to the surface [vinyl] facing, but no structural damage in the sub-panel.

 

One of the things on my checklist(s) to to explore the feasibility of having my interior(s) recovered in leather. My 70 is red....no problem finding red leather I suppose. The 68 is the light blue interior and it has a sort of metallic like luster to it. Al Knoch's leather used for seats in this color is a good approximate of the original factory color. I like the look and smell of real leather....even if it's the "manufactured" leather in my C8 interior.

One annoying problem I have is that the interior chrome strips on my repro door panels have signs of corrosion. Really annoying. One piece of trim on the door panels is stainless steel....hurray for that......it hasn't corroded. I've bought a complete set of the other brightwork trim pieces, ~$650 and even though they're still in the box, I plan to have them rechromed. I feel pretty sure that given the speed that the non-stainless brightwork on my existing repro panels corroded, I'm sure that their replacements I bought will quickly corrode also. Being rechromed with a thick layer of copper will probably well protect them from corrosion. I've got to the point that often when I buy a repro part that come chrome plated, I just send it in for rechroming since the original chrome plating on the repro parts is usually pretty poor.