A method for producing a vehicle interior panel with an invisible airbag tear seam and a vehicle interior panel with an invisible airbag tear seam and a vehicle dashboard having a vehicle interior panel with an invisible airbag tear seam

摘要

A method of manufacturing a vehicle interior panel having an invisible airbag tear seam, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a decorative cover having a self-healing skin layer, the skin layer being resilient; (b) placing the cover over a substrate to encircle the panel (10) to at least partially form the substrate having a predetermined airbag deployment opening location; and(c) mechanically piercing the self-healing skin layer with a piercing tool to form microholes at a plurality of spaced locations corresponding to the airbag deployment opening location, the piercing being performed from a decorative side of the cover and retracting the piercing tool from the self-healing layer of skin, whereupon the resulting hole shrinks to half or less the stitch diameter to form a tear seam having the microholes in the cover, the microholes being of a diameter small enough not to be visually detected.