John D. Starr

Thank you all for your suggestions. John Starr

I am working on a 1934 Hupmobile model J. It is original and "all there". I have been looking at the running boards, and while they don't look too bad for an 86 year old car, they do need their "rubber" surface replaced. I know there is a guy in Western Canada who does this kind of thing, but don't think I can (or want to) afford him. My question is "could some one recommend a material, and a source?" My current thought is to machine the pattern into the material and glue the material to the running boards. I have thought that with a pattern I could possibly cast new ones, but it seems like I will have to do the machine work to create the pattern, so why not just machine them. I also have no experience with casting rubber like products and am trying to avoid what might be a long learning curve. Any thoughts on the matter will be appreciated. As you might expect with an aerodynamic body shape there are some curves, I will probably have to join the material to get it to conform to the curves.