Door card trimming tutorial by Martin_C
Put together this guide as a help to everyone who was asking how I managed to trim my door cards. I had never done any sort of trimming this difficult before, so decided to give it a go, as I was quoted £150 by a professional to trim both my door cards, with myself supplying material!!!
First of all you’ll need a metre square of your chosen material; this is enough to trim 3 Corsa C door cards I found, as mistakes can happen on the first attempt!
I purchased a square metre of blue alcantara from vxl on the site, costing £50.
Before you start, remember, measure twice, cut once!!, its expensive stuff to waste for the sake of an extra few minutes measuring!!
You will need:
1 large tin of spray adhesive
A 6” steel rule (or something similar, try not to use a screwdriver as this may pierce the material)
Small and large scissors
Your mums iron (with steam function)
Glue/solvent remover (I used Mangers DE-SOLV-IT, worked a treat)
Permanent marker pen
Heavy objects
Paper kitchen towels/old rag
A 2L bottle of your favourite soft drink
![Image]()
First off, you need to remove the door card, using [redacted]’s nice tutorial found HERE.
You should have the door card looking like this, unfortunately the material section doesn’t come off, unless you break the plastic behind, but that means plastic welding it back on, and most of us don’t own such equipment!! (Excuse the rather dodgy looking stains, its glue left over from a previous attempt!).
![Image]()
Take the alcantara and decide which side you are using, as one side is like suede, the other is the side you want to use, it should look different is you rub it with your fingers. The alcantara has a stretch to it in one direction and not the other, have a play with it and see which way stretches best, the stretch will run lengthways of the door card, this allows it to be stretched on certain parts later on.
Offer the material up to the door card and cut out the shape very very roughly, it can be trimmed down later on, you just need to cut a more manageable piece just now, you should end up with something similar to this. Make sure the top edge that runs closest to the window is reasonably straight.
![Image]()
Position the material over the door card and smooth it so you can make sure everything with be covered with material to spare, you don’t want to run short at the last minute! Once lined up, start in the middle of the straight part of the door card at the top and begin to push and tuck the material in between the plastic and the material of the door card, you should have a smooth looking piece of material going in with no creases.
![Image]()
Work your way outwards until you reach the curve at each end, you should end up with something like this.
![Image]()
Flip the material back so that the original door card material is showing, and spray roughly 3 inches from the top of the door card down, and the same on the alcantara, remember you must spray the alcantara with the glue also as it’s a contact adhesive, it may not stick if you don’t!! Leave it for 3-4 minutes so it becomes tacky. Pass the time by looking silly.
![Image]()
![Image]()
Once the glue has become tacky, smooth it onto the door card, working your way in from the edge and the middle, if a crease appears just pull the material off that section, it’ll stick back down easily at this stage. Don’t worry if it feels icy cold it’s just the glue doing its job.
![Image]()
Spray the area around the door handle and stick it down, be careful not to get any spray glue on the plastics, I used a paper kitchen towel to cover them when spraying.
![Image]()
Stand around looking like a silly sausage again waiting for the glue to go off.
![Image]()
Once smoothed into place, mark around the door handle plastic clips using a permanent marker pen, I prefer the free kind supplied in some of the UK’s top modified car magazines. Remember to leave the extra material on, the door handle plastic cover will cover it anyway.
![Image]()
Trim the excess away using the small scissors, large ones aren’t too neat at it!
![Image]()
Once done it should look like this.
![Image]()
Next you need to mark and cut the area along beside the window switch area. Mark it by smoothing the material into place, then running the edge of the steel rule along it, this should leave a faint line on the material, enough for a guide of where to cut.
![Image]()
Cut the material a good few mm away from the marked line, so there is enough material to tuck under the plastics, like so.
![Image]()
Put together this guide as a help to everyone who was asking how I managed to trim my door cards. I had never done any sort of trimming this difficult before, so decided to give it a go, as I was quoted £150 by a professional to trim both my door cards, with myself supplying material!!!
First of all you’ll need a metre square of your chosen material; this is enough to trim 3 Corsa C door cards I found, as mistakes can happen on the first attempt!
I purchased a square metre of blue alcantara from vxl on the site, costing £50.
Before you start, remember, measure twice, cut once!!, its expensive stuff to waste for the sake of an extra few minutes measuring!!
You will need:
1 large tin of spray adhesive
A 6” steel rule (or something similar, try not to use a screwdriver as this may pierce the material)
Small and large scissors
Your mums iron (with steam function)
Glue/solvent remover (I used Mangers DE-SOLV-IT, worked a treat)
Permanent marker pen
Heavy objects
Paper kitchen towels/old rag
A 2L bottle of your favourite soft drink
First off, you need to remove the door card, using [redacted]’s nice tutorial found HERE.
You should have the door card looking like this, unfortunately the material section doesn’t come off, unless you break the plastic behind, but that means plastic welding it back on, and most of us don’t own such equipment!! (Excuse the rather dodgy looking stains, its glue left over from a previous attempt!).
Take the alcantara and decide which side you are using, as one side is like suede, the other is the side you want to use, it should look different is you rub it with your fingers. The alcantara has a stretch to it in one direction and not the other, have a play with it and see which way stretches best, the stretch will run lengthways of the door card, this allows it to be stretched on certain parts later on.
Offer the material up to the door card and cut out the shape very very roughly, it can be trimmed down later on, you just need to cut a more manageable piece just now, you should end up with something similar to this. Make sure the top edge that runs closest to the window is reasonably straight.
Position the material over the door card and smooth it so you can make sure everything with be covered with material to spare, you don’t want to run short at the last minute! Once lined up, start in the middle of the straight part of the door card at the top and begin to push and tuck the material in between the plastic and the material of the door card, you should have a smooth looking piece of material going in with no creases.
Work your way outwards until you reach the curve at each end, you should end up with something like this.
Flip the material back so that the original door card material is showing, and spray roughly 3 inches from the top of the door card down, and the same on the alcantara, remember you must spray the alcantara with the glue also as it’s a contact adhesive, it may not stick if you don’t!! Leave it for 3-4 minutes so it becomes tacky. Pass the time by looking silly.
Once the glue has become tacky, smooth it onto the door card, working your way in from the edge and the middle, if a crease appears just pull the material off that section, it’ll stick back down easily at this stage. Don’t worry if it feels icy cold it’s just the glue doing its job.
Spray the area around the door handle and stick it down, be careful not to get any spray glue on the plastics, I used a paper kitchen towel to cover them when spraying.
Stand around looking like a silly sausage again waiting for the glue to go off.
Once smoothed into place, mark around the door handle plastic clips using a permanent marker pen, I prefer the free kind supplied in some of the UK’s top modified car magazines. Remember to leave the extra material on, the door handle plastic cover will cover it anyway.
Trim the excess away using the small scissors, large ones aren’t too neat at it!
Once done it should look like this.
Next you need to mark and cut the area along beside the window switch area. Mark it by smoothing the material into place, then running the edge of the steel rule along it, this should leave a faint line on the material, enough for a guide of where to cut.
Cut the material a good few mm away from the marked line, so there is enough material to tuck under the plastics, like so.
