Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I have been wanting to reproduce the 67.5 headrests for my car as mine did not come with them when I purchased. Ed Mason was extremely kind and made me a prototype headrest including a mold of his original headrest foam. This thread will be on reproducing the foam. I will post the frame and the panels that cover the mounting hardware in another thread.

Warning...Crappy cell phone pics.

Here is the mold that Ed made.



Here is the product I am using. Much trial and error led me to this product. There are other products out there, however this is the only one I could find with different densities available. I went with a mid range density. I didn't want it to be too hard, but also not too soft either. I am told the original foam was fairly dense.



I've lined my mold with cling wrap, and am ready to mix my A and B portions. You don't have a lot of time between mixing and expansion.



After pouring the mixed foam in the mold, it is time to cover the mold.



Time is of the essence, as the foam will start to expand rapidly. (you can still see product on the mold from other foam I have tried with no success)



Relief holes for expansion.



Be careful, as the leftover product will expand.



And, Ta Da! The finished product. Just remove the cling wrap, trim any excess, and you are ready to install the foam to the headrest.



All in all, pretty easy. The next time I would use a drill to mix the A & B parts. I think you will get better, more uniform expansion. I may also try the lower density material and compare. With all the densities available, you could use this product to reproduce anything from stiff sun visors to soft seat cushion foam.

BTW, all the thanks goes to Ed Mason for making the mold and headrest prototype.

Damn I love this community!

Outstanding!

I wonder how this would hold up for seat cushions?

Kyle,
I am glad you are using the headrest stuff. This is just awesome. There are just no resources for some of our parts.
When I found and purchased my headrests from Dann at Rallye, I felt fortunate in that I even found some. I paid
450.00 for a pair of ugly, rusty, but complete headrests for a 67.5 car. Thanks for using the headrest stuff, and
sharing and helping the community, I also love this community.

Curtis wrote:I wonder how this would hold up for seat cushions?

My thoughts exactly. Reading website, but no clear answer.

Pretty cool man, test it out for a few months and report back? If it all works out, it may be something you could market?

steve

Curtis wrote:I wonder how this would hold up for seat cushions?

I think it would hold up quite well. Especially with the different densities available. I'm going to experiment with the lowest density foam and see how that is.

Ed Mason wrote:Kyle,
I am glad you are using the headrest stuff. This is just awesome. There are just no resources for some of our parts.
When I found and purchased my headrests from Dann at Rallye, I felt fortunate in that I even found some. I paid
450.00 for a pair of ugly, rusty, but complete headrests for a 67.5 car. Thanks for using the headrest stuff, and
sharing and helping the community, I also love this community.

Ed, the headrest stuff you provided has been just, well, awesome. I'm getting ready to make some molds for the cover plates, and have a couple of companies looking at making a few frames. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate what you have done. Do you know by chance if the stock headrest frames were black or chrome?

Oh, and let me know if you want me to make you a pair of the headrest foams. I would be happy to make you a pair. I'm getting ready to order some more foam.

I painted mine with the satin or flat silver that is unique to the 67.5 year interior pieces such as the window cranks
inside door handle pulls and cups and other trim areas. I would love a set of foam pads, and if you do find someone to make the
frames I would be interested in purchasing a set of those also. I plan on using the original seats for my swap car and of course,
I don't have the headrests. I love the look of a 67.5 interior with the headrests, with the headrests on the low adjustment.
For the flat silver paint, I ended up using Argent silver for wheels in Du Pont chromabase. I added a hardening agent to
the base coat paint, and lightly fogged on the paint, purposely flashing the paint on dry. The base coat is not strong by itself
but with the hardener it works pretty good is relatively tough. Takes a little practice, but after multiple attempts and hours of
experimenting this worked best for me and was pretty close to some of the original parts of my car.

I realize that part of the effort would be to reproduce the parts to look like the factory (nice work BTW!). However, the stock headrests are good for staring at the stars or looking for police airplanes, but that is about it. Mine were nicely modified by the previous owner(s) by cutting the rods in about the middle of the exposed area and angling them forward. They did such a nice job I had no idea it was not stock, as you cannot see the welding. I think they look great and are much more functional as a headrest. Just my 2cents.

This might be extreme, but I would suggest one set for "show" and one for "driving"

I already remove my sun visors when driving......thinking about making plexiglass versions for driving....