The Return of the Carson Top: Part 2 - Street Rodder Magazine

Because he installed laminated wood under the window frames, Steve can staple the material right to the frames, creating that finished, enclosed Carson top look.

The padding will be installed right over the burlap underliner.

There's a step here that wasn't photographed. "I use what's called un-bonded polyester that's 2 inches thick for the padding," said Steve. "The muslin holds all the padding. Then I start laying out my top cover."

With the padding installed, Steve's creating the pattern for the actual top. The padding material was compressed with another layer of muslin.

"Those marker lines show the actual stitches where the seams are going to go. I lay them out ahead of time, so I know exactly where they are going to be," Steve said. "I'm also marking where the raised bead will go."

Here he's sewing a test panel for the raised bead. This bead is a functional, very attractive styling element on a Carson top.

Steve's German-made pin tuck sewing machine's twin needles create a parallel seam stitch. He uses this special double-needle machine to simultaneously run a piece of piping up under the material to give it that desirable raised effect. This is the same effect Mercedes-Benz used in its 190SL seats and 300SL roadster door panels.

"This stitching is hard to do by hand," Steve said. "Even with this machine, when you try doing two parallel stitches, it's easy to make a mistake. You're making them exactly a quarter-inch apart from one another with a piece of piping in between. It's very difficult."

"Now, I am actually installing the top and I have finished the rear window, and slid it up into the slot," he said.

The rear bow section is also tacked tightly. It will be finished off with a strip of Hide-em and vintage-style chromed tips.

Next he does the final tacking, and then he completes the trimming and piping and installs the Hide-em strip to finish off the front of the top.

Here's the beginning of the Hide-em strip installation. The strip allows him to securely tack the material and still have a pleasing design element to quite literally hide the tacks.

Here's the finished top front with the Hide-em strip. Steve has the Hide-em strips made on a special machine with material that matches the top. Note that the Hide-em flows smoothly into the seam on the side of the top. Steve notes that the Hide-em uses a black base; "I don't know why they do that," he says, "but eventually it's going to close up and you won't even see it."

The Carson-style top is nearly completed here. Steve's work is artistry on canvas.

If there are any wrinkles, Steve runs a steamer over areas that might show a few puckers. Above the rear window, you can see a little wave. He's steaming it out.

The finished Carson-style top presents a much cleaner silhouette than the earlier cloth-covered 'glass top. The line neatly follows the characteristic curve coming off the windshield, and it's especially pleasing without a pronounced "eyebrow" like the stock '32 tops.

Charlie Dolin is now the owner of the blue '32. He wanted the contrasting blue inside piping, and Steve Pierce obliged. "I saw the process in stages," Charlie said, "and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was when Steve finished." Steve reports it took about 170 hours to do the blue roadster's new top. "At the Carson Top Shop, they had 10 or 15 people-one person did the bows, another did the covers, like a little assembly line, so they could turn out several tops in one week."