Sorry Billy, I have misunderstood you. The rivet cover trim pieces are plastic. The trim piece that the plastic strip attaches to on my Barth is aluminum. I am not sure if there are enough plastic trim left for changing out the entire coach to the plastic strip. If that is an option you would be interested in I could find out for you. Sorry about the confusion.

You touched on one of my back burner projects and a real pet peeve.

Evidently my Monarch has the same trim strip as Billy's. It is essentially an aluminum C channel.

I am looking for this trim as well. No, mine didn't get bent when it was removed to replace rivets. Oh no...
When the cargo door hinge got loose instead of removing the trim and replacing the rivets, oh no, we just drill right through. Worse yet they are all out of line, off center. Look like hell. There are 4 doors like this, about 100 rivets.





When I get the paint touched up I want to remove these rivets and the originals below, replace the rivets and trim properly. I'll need at least 12 ft of trim.

Evidently one of the POs paid a "professional" and had the "repair" work done. Whoever did this should be shot.

If I find the metal strip I will post it here. I could switch to the plastic strip but I would have to do the whole coach.

I bet you will need to find the original Barth supplier, who bought out that supplier and if they still have the dies. Maybe rename the coach, The Rolling Stones, then Paint it Black. Change the lyrics a bit, like from the original:
I see your red door, I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black

could become
I see rivets I abore, PO's head I want to smack
Won't see any more, I painted the trim flat black

Thanks for looking for the bright side, even if it is flat black!

It might be feasible to consider sending a piece of trim to a custom extruded of aluminum and getting a price to have some made. With the several hundred coaches in existence that many want to restore and repair it might not be too expensive. From a cursory look at some other period coach makers it seems that Blue Bird, Newell and Hawkins may have used the same belt moldings.

I was looking for trim and found one extruder that offered special small runs which were as small as 7000 lineal feet!

Sounds reasonable at 10 cents per foot. What would the cost per foot be? 7000 lineal feet would change the beltline on over 200 Barthmobiles. Tell us more Tim.

Can't imagine even approaching as low as 10 cents per foot for that profile. Here is one supplier, https://eagle-aluminum.com/cus...aluminum-extrusions/ There are many best would be to find original then trace the acquired by scenario to current. Probably a low chance for retention of die but who knows?

Inquiry was sent. We will see what happens.

The biggest cost in an extrusion is making the dies. I sold steel used to make these dies and while the material was not overly expensive, the design and manufacture of the dies was costly. Extruding the aluminum accounted for maybe 1/4 of the cost of the extrusion.

If there is a die similar to what Barth used in stock, I would opt for new trim on the old Barth at ten cents a foot. Shipping would be the other part of the expense. Extruded runs could be limited to 12 footers. Eliminating the distributor and the retailer will cut our costs.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin:
If there is a die similar to what Barth used in stock, I would opt for new trim on the old Barth at ten cents a foot. Shipping would be the other part of the expense. Extruded runs could be limited to 12 footers. Eliminating the distributor and the retailer will cut our costs.

Where have you come up with the 10 cent number? 8' of an extrusion of likely similar dimension and weight at Home Depot online is $19, drop the base cost to 1/3 and it is still over $0.75/ft and this is standard run stock.
My guess if if the dies were on hand would be $1.50/ft in advance, were it double that it would not be surprising. JMO

quote:

I was taught to respect my elders but it is getting harder to find them!

Me, too!

Now I find out I am one.

quote:

Originally posted by Dick Dubbs:

quote:

I was taught to respect my elders but it is getting harder to find them!

Me, too!

Now I find out I am one.

Dick, this sig line is probably not valid for this forum, seems there are a few, probably more contemporaries though.