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."
Steve Pierce
603-387-3554
603-293-0500
oneoff21@metrocast.net