Method for molding a vehicle door panel

#This invention relates to vehicle door panels and more particularly to improvements in methods for making vehicle door panels relating to the provision of a carpet section on the lower surface thereof which faces the interior of the vehicle when installed therein.

#There are two different methods for making panels which serve as background for the present invention, both of which result in a somewhat similar panel construction. The difference is that one method is capable of building into the panel more softness by including larger amounts of foamed material. Basically, this softer configuration is used in the more expensive luxury cars, whereas the other method is used basically in the large majority of other vehicles.

#The method of making the luxury panel is essentially a two-stage process. In the first stage of the process, a substrate which is in the form of the panel is made by placing a fiberglass reinforcing mat in the lower half of a two-part mold and then filling the lower half of the mold with a foamable material such as liquid polyurethane capable of being cured into a foamed condition. After the foamable material has been inserted into the lower half of the mold, the upper half is moved down and then the foamable material is cured under heat to complete the substrate which is fairly rigid. In the second stage of the process, the substrate molded in the first stage is placed in the upper half of a second two-part mold. The lower part of the mold is in essence a vacuum mold. The second stage procedure is begun by moving a heated sheet of imperforate vinyl over the bottom part of the mold and then drawing by vacuum the heated sheet into the mold so that the three-dimensional configuration is formed on the vinyl. After the vinyl has been moved into engagement with the mold by the vacuum source, an amount of foamable material such as liquid polyurethane is then injected into the mold on top of the vinyl and thereafter the upper part of the mold which contains the substrate is then moved into cooperating relation with the lower part and the foamable material is cured into a relatively soft foamed condition.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a completed vehicle door panel constructed in accordance with the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a sectional view of a first vacuum mold component showing a step in the method according to the present invention;

#FIG. 3 is a sectional view similar to FIG. 2 showing the completion of the vacuum forming step of the method with a second non-vacuum mold component in an inoperative position with respect to the first vacuum mold component;

#Referring now more particularly to the drawings, there is shown in FIG. 1 a vehicle door panel, generally indicated at 10, made by a method according to the principles of the present invention. The door panel 10 includes a window sill upper portion 12 and an arm rest portion 14 defining therebetween a bolster receiving portion 16. A lower planar rug receiving portion 18 having a rug section 20 adhered thereto is disposed below the arm rest portion 14.

#The method utilizes a mold assembly, generally indicated at 22. The mold assembly 22 includes a first lower mold part or component 24, which is a vacuum forming mold component having a mold surface 26 and two sets of vacuum openings 28 and 29 extending from the mold surface 26 to two sources of vacuum (not shown). The mold surface 26 includes a portion, indicated at 30, which is positioned to form the bolster receiving portion 16 of the panel 10. The preferred method of the present invention utilizes the bolster providing steps disclosed in my commonly assigned concurrently filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/052,453, Docket 90, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference into the present specification. The present method is more concerned with the formation of the lower portion 18 of the panel 10 which receives the carpet section 20 and hence in its broadest aspects contemplates the formation of a door panel 10 without a bolster or a door panel having a bolster provided by other known process steps.

#The bolster receiving portion 30 is defined by a thin projecting peripheral lip 32. FIG. 2 illustrates the first step in ,the present method and, in this initial step in accordance with the aforesaid application, a bolster laminate 34 is initially prepared for mounting on the portion 30 of the mold surface 26 defined by the peripheral lip 32. The bolster laminate 34 includes a textile outer layer. The textile outer layer may be of any suitable configuration and material as, for example, a knitted, woven, non-woven or otherwise formed textile fabric made from monofilaments and/or staple filaments of one textile material or of different textile materials including synthetic and natural materials such as cotton, wool, silk, linen, polyester, nylon, rayon, polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl, and blends and mixtures thereof. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the textile layer is formed of a synthetic thermoplastic material, as for, example, polyester and the mold surface portion 30 has an appropriate design, such as the embossed squares 36, provided therein which can be imparted by molding under heat and pressure to the textile outer layer of thermoplastic material of the bolster laminate 34.