Patent ID: 9358697
Filing Date: 2016-06-07
CPC Classification: B26F,B29C,B60R,Y10T

Claim Text:
1. A method of making a vehicle interior panel having a non-visible airbag tear seam, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a decorative covering having a self-healing skin layer; (b) disposing the covering over a substrate to at least partly form the panel, the substrate having a pre-determined airbag deployment opening location; and (c) mechanically piercing the self-healing skin layer using a piercing tool to form microholes at a plurality of spaced apart locations corresponding to the airbag deployment opening location, wherein the piercing is performed from a decorative side of the covering and a non-visible tear seam comprising the microholes is formed in the covering, each microhole being smaller than an effective piercing diameter of the piercing tool so that the tear seam is non-visible without the need for a subsequent process intended to hide the formed tear seam.