Mouse hair

I have a 71. 246 GT with its interior original. Nicely patinaed seats and carpets with no tears or wear. However the mouse hair is very grey and worn. Conundum is replace it or leave it . Any thoughts? If replacement can this material be sourced easily and is it the same as OEM?

 

please search this forum. There is a producer called Henk based in the Netherlands who makes it to concourse standards.

Snowy

 

Here you go!

Henk van Lith
HVL Exclusive Italian Interiors
Dreef 60
4014 ML Wadenoijen
The Netherlands
T: 0031 (0) 344 661610
F: 0031 (0) 344 661616
E: [email protected]
I: HVL - Exclusive Italian Interiors

 

I ordered from hank 3 weeks ago. The mouse hair arrived last week, and it's perfect.
The whole process was a hassle free event.

 

I don't need it now, but at some point my original dashboard will be minus fur. So for future reference, what qty is required?

 

2 meters

 

Start saving now as its eye watering expensive, especially the HVL material.

I would add caution to redoing just one bit of the interior, i did this some years ago and it shows up the rest that is 40 years old. You will end up doing the rest to make it look better.

Either leave it and enjoy the "patina" or do the whole thing. Word of warning do your research first.

Tony

 

I must disagree on the price as being expensive. Considering that it is made in relatively small amounts, the cost is not bad at all. It is very expensive to make short runs of material not to mention the costs that came from determining how to replicate the process and the costs of keeping inventory of production runs. I certainly won't call it cheap but by the same token no one is getting rich either.

 

Who says it is to concourse standards? Some of us here would question that.

 

In my case, the rest of the interior (vinyl, headliner, carpets) was already redone and is in like-new condition. So the mouse hair is the detractor currently, but I plan to wait until it goes bald.

 

I for one would not question it. Before doing my dash I did extensive research comparing NOS material to the stuff from HVL. My verdict is that with both materials to choose from and money no object I would take the HVL stuff in a second. Once installed it is indistinguishable and it will not fade like the original.

IMHO insisting on using original material when the HVL stuff is available is as wise as insisting on painting a car in lacquer when there are much better modern options available that achieve the same look without the shortcomings.

 

Who says it is to concourse standards? Some of us here would question that.

 

Henk's is certainly the best I have seen. Some or the reproduction mouse hair is too black and too thick and hides the grain.

 

I have a bolt of original mouse hair that is 30 years old. Bought it way back when and have kept it all this time. I ordered Hank's and compared to the original. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that no one can tell them apart. Hank's stuff is superb, and frankly inexpensive for what you get.

 

The original was flocked Dino vinyl.
Henk's is definitely not flocked nor is it Dino vinyl but a layered weave on an elastic base which mimics the Dino vinyl.

Installer's prefer it because the stretch factor which makes installation easier and truthfully it does lay smoothly and evenly but some owner's do not prefer it to the original.
There is a source for flocked Dino vinyl.

 

What is the source for the flocked Dino vinyl?

 

Sound advice. Here it is entirely original( see pic) . Your probably right....New Mouse hair would pop too much compared to the patina on rest of interior and id never touch the rest as its quite beautiful.Think ill leave and enjoy as is but thankyou for the supplier contact which ill file.
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so it is expensive and how do you know no one is getting rich. Just asking!

Is it the best, have you done a comparitive test on all the fabrics available with analysis on wear and UV stabilisation etc over a period of 3 years or is it based on hearsay.

I fear most do not charge on the basis of what is a fair price based on materials and time to produce, more what can they get away with because its a Ferrari and you have nowhere else to go. We have a supplier around here that doesnt issue prices untill you go there, he then looks at the car you are driving and adjusts the price accordingly. So I go in a beat up van.

I used the superformance product and like the finish a lot, my trimmer had no trouble recovering the dash whatsoever and its UV stabilised too.

 

Nice, keep it that way, wished i hadnt done mine but it had to be refurbished.

 

I have owned my Dino 0474 for a while now but am still lurking. During that lurk I have seen Freeman referenced often with a kind of presumed respect or reverence. Am I lurking into this to far? In any case I am presently the owner of Freeman's 4CamGT.


Before my mouse hair query, have I mentioned before that my Dino is certainly the only one to be found in rural East Troy, Wisconsin, which adjoins Mukwonago-place of the bear? In that rural context know that just a few miles from here is another rural town called Muskego. ( I do not know what Muskego means in Potowatami. )

There resides in that town a fellow by the name of Jim May. Jim owns a Tipo L two production numbers before mine. What does it all mean?

Mouse Hair : A refernce to flocking caught my attention. Was the original mouse hair material a flocking ? I ask because I have been informed that there is an establishment in nearby Pewaukee ( a lake magnet but more magnetic then Lake Muskego ) that can do flocking of my bare vinyl for $300.

Please, I would very much appreciate any information you may have regarding that process.

By the way, Jim May only recently took his almost finished ( but not restored ) Dino from a well known resto shop and friend. The friend part was the problem. Jim's car was in the shop for over 25 years. The twenty five year project is a phenom I am all too familiar with, but it is too painful to speak of. Besides, it is on going.

Best wishes,

David

 

Dennis McCann

 

Synchro is correct - and McCann's mouse hair/fur matched the hair/fur in the glove box and the dash underside of both my GTS and my GT, both of which are darker than the Henks material.

So, again, what concours judge states that the Henks material meets concours standards? I can understand someone saying that it very close to the original, but it didn't match the material in either of my Dinos. It might be acceptable for concours purposes, but it is not a perfect match.

The thing is, the dash material has an underlying grain that matches the Dino vinyl elsewhere in the car, and it is darker than the Henks material samples that I have. The Henks material is sort of halfway between the color of a sun battered dash and the mouse hair/fur material inside a glove box.

Either way, the both end up collecting dirt, dust, and debris like a Swiffer.

 

Well I suppose the only consistency with the cars is the inconsistency. The material in 06640 is a virtual exact match to Henks material. I compared a sample from Dennis McCann and Henks is virtually identical to my glovebox and the other preserved spots under the dash.

As an aside the material that Henk is making is produced on the original machine that Ferrari used. He also employed the individual that ran the machine back in the day and they experimented together over a number of months with modern materials to produce something that would be an excellent match and uv resistant.

Henk told me this himself and he is the most anal interior guy I have ever dealt with.

As I said earlier maybe your car is different but it is as close to an exact match to both 03666 and 06640 as I can see.

 

I can not agree more. As I noted earlier I have a bolt of original dash material I also ordered and received Hank's material. I can not tell the difference. Hank is as anal as anyone in the business. His research is in-depth and thorough.

 

Tony I do not mean to start anything here but you asked so I'll answer:

My primary work is to deal with small to medium volume manufacturing with emphasis in the automotive industry. As such I am uniquely positioned to talk on the subject of short run custom manufacturing. In addition when I started my project Henk's material was not available and I considered the Superformance stuff to be unacceptable because the colour was way off (too black with a hint of blue). As such I learned all about flocking Dino vinyl and the costs associated with getting short runs done. With all of this info I can tell you without a doubt that the prices being charged are not absurdly marked up in any way when you consider all of the surrounding costs associated with the project.

My feedback on Henk's material is not based on heresay nor on an elaborate 3 year scientific study. Samples of material were placed on the dash of a car that was parked in the sun for 3 months straight. At the end I compared these samples to fresh out of the roll samples and found ZERO fade or colour change. With this info I was confident enough to use the product myself.