Oof… This was my least favorite part and resulted in the worst outcome (thus far) on the van… 😕 The E-150 has so many angles, holes, ridges, supports, cables and other awkward protrusions, that there was no easy way to conceal them. Painting wasn’t an option, wood (or another rigid material) would have been heavy and bulky, so I looked into fabric. I was initially looking at headliner fabric with a foam backing, but it was soft and didn’t seem durable. After speaking to an upholstery shop, they concurred and steered me toward a tweed fabric that is common in van conversions. I found one I liked at Joann’s and ordered a specialty adhesive (Landau Top and Trim) which can handle the fluctuating temperatures in a vehicle. The adhesive is very effective, but with a short working time (5-10 minutes) and a yellow hue, I had A LOT of difficulty wrapping the tweed around the many bends of the van/ smoothing out creases in the allotted time, and also reducing bleed through from the glue. I think if I were to do it again, I would go with the headliner fabric which could have better smoothed out the imperfections and wouldn’t have had the same bleed through issues.
If you look closely you’ll see some of the smudges and yellow bleed through, and also the creases in the fabric where the curvature of the van was just too much to make up.
Once I get the curtains and decorations up it will help conceal some of my screw ups, but for now I’m just happy to be done with this agonizing part of the build. Ha.
To conceal some of the edges I bought some rubber stripping and used it around the windows etc. This made a major difference.
