Valences: ideas wanted

[Edward Buker]

I added an MCD single power shade to my front windshield and made a wood trim piece (in my case cherry) to act as a valence. The whole MCD shade thing is a bit of a tricky modification for a windshield. The more vertical the windshield and curtain drop, the better it will work. I also used a little SC Johnson paste wax on my A pillar wood trim that i added to make the curtain work smoothly. A little patience on this project....

Later Ed

[Keith Oliver]

Ed:

Thanks for the photos.  Looks like you have the same geography up front as I do.  My A pillars are going to be modified to give a flat surface for the blinds to slide down.  I have pulled tehm off and found that they are galvanized sheet metal, so can simply be bent to the right angle, maybe even without removing the Naugahyde.  thanks for the tip re waxing them.  Up top, your cherry valance looks good and encourages me to do something similar.

This afternoon I was aboard a 2014 Phaeton with MCD from the factory.  The valence treatment over the door interests me, but they have the cabinetry act as a forward valence, so not something I can copy.

[Edward Buker]

My A pillars were galvanized metal and I handled them by pulling the covering and creating an angle board making the flat and using 3m contact spray adhesive to secure the Naugahyde back down. There was enough extra to rework it. We had some difficult issues to face with this install, driven by the sloping A pillars and the tight geometry. I decided that trying to do a dual shade was pretty impossible, but maybe your installer has some tricks. I found that the rod that is in the bottom of the shade would bow, due to not having a perfectly vertical A pillar. The slope puts a weight component from the shade on the rod. That bowing, along with the top to side configuration not being perfectly square, would have the rod on one side, come off of the A pillar while traveling down. I solved that by making some cherry moldings for the A pillar to provide a narrower opening between the A pillars. Now it is fine, but it took some reworking. This whole system really works best if you have a perfectly vertical A pillar. One other thing, we still carry a reflective foil interior windshield cover, and at times we unfold that and bring down the MCD shade, so the top of the foil shade will rest on the MCD rod. The MCD shade is good, but in extreme heat the foil reflector is still better. It is very nice to have the ability to lower the shade while driving and have a full width visor affect with no space for the sun to blast you when you have the dual shade arrangement. Photos of A pillar flat being created with a board. One with covering. One with molding detail and then one of the finished shade with the shade partially lowered. The valence is also a bit tricky.  It had to be at the right angle and planed quite thin, maybe 5/16ths if I remember, in order to have clearance for the existing curtain to pass by, if you are keeping those in place.

Later Ed

[Edward Buker]

One last thought, if you bend the galvanized A pillar trim to obtain the flat you will no longer have the holes for remounting them line up. I used the wood wedges for that reason and drilled the A pillar trim and mounted the wood wedges with screws through the A pillar galvanized metal trim. After the wedges were secured with screws. I then recovered them with the Naugahyde and 3M contact adhesive passing the original covering over the wood wedges.

Later Ed

[Richard And Babs Ames]

We are having blinds installed. Using the original valances with a spacer.

[Keith Oliver]

Got the job done today.  The A pillars are out, to get covered, will be back in tomorrow.  Then I will post some pictures.  The original valences are almost deep enough, but about 1/2 of them had to be relocated out from the wall to give adequate clearance.  Now that the legs and bottoms of the valences are off, the original wall covering is really looking sad, so I think there will need to be some improvement to those before the new valences go on.  

The new A pillars are made of plastic, bent at 90 degrees and cut to fit around the blind rolls at the top and close to the dash at the bottom.  Once covered with new fabric, they should disappear.  Wait for tomorrow's pictures.

[Keith Oliver]

Pictures: Sorry, I have forgotten how to shrink my pictures to less than 1 MB, so can't post any until I get that sorted out.

[Richard And Babs Ames]

Keith, you can set your camera to take a picture that has an e mailable or up loadable file size. I went from a non uploadable file size to one that uploads in a couple seconds by changing my camera settings.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Or, take picture as normal. Load into PC. Select picture. Click on Picture on toolbar. Select Resize. Options are document, web or emaal, resulting in smaller picture in that order. Document usually works OK for Forum. Save work and they are ready to load on forum page. You may want to make copys first as this permanently resizes them.
Steve

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Oops,  "Select Compress Picture", not "Resize"
Steve

[Keith Oliver]

Steve:

I looked on my computer for the things you mentioned, but didn't find anything at all similar.  When I tried downloading a program to "resize" photos, I got a whole lot of trouble, some horrid programs that took over my computer and altered a bunch of stuff.  I had to stop it all and reboot.  At this point I don't believe resizing is that important.  If I ever get small photos, I will post them.

[Joel Ashley]

If you have a Windows photo program or other brand of photo processing software, or even one supplied with your digital camera, you may be able to use it.  Different providers use different terminology, "resizing" being one, but most work similarly.  

Get your photo into such software, then click on the File menu button far upper left corner.  Choose "Save as".  It is likely that somewhere in the "Save as" window that opens is a button, or a link to one via an "Options" button, that allows you to reduce the size or resolution quality of the image, although some simple image editing applications ("Paint" for example) don't include resizing capability.  Some let you pick a number, but many use a slider bar where you move to a percentage of size or quality less than 100%.  After adjusting that setting, back at the "Save as" window you make sure that the "Save as Type" field has "jpeg" or "JPG" selected, since jpeg format is commonly acceptable for uploading to sites like the Forum.  Then click on "Save" or OK to save your changes.  The resulting image copy should be fine for uploading to the Forum as long as it is less than 1MB.

Usually, the first thing I do before all that is make a copy of the photo in question in the computer's photo album (My Pictures or whatever).  The copy ends up in the album right next to the original.  I then only edit the copy, so when it is "Saved as", I have both the original at full resolution and a a copy at a lower resolution for future use.  In theory, when you pick "Save as" from the File menu rather than "Save" after editing an image, the original remains automatically untouched in the album alongside the new copy, but I've never trusted that theory with all my programs.

Joel

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Kieth,
Are you running Windows? If so, what operating system; XP, Windows 7, etc.?
Steve

[Keith Oliver]

Steve:

Windows Vista Home premium.

I tried your suggestions, but alas, no "save as" or similar anywhere i have looked.
On other projects at the moment, but thanks for the help.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Keith,
Can't help with VISTA but that explains why the instructions didn't work. Maybe another Forum VISTA user can help.
Steve