Saving an OE '39 Merc Trunk Mat

[Shoebox]

I had been putting off addressing an in/op gas gauge in my '39 Merc, suspecting the sender, and knowing I would have to lift up or remove the trunk mat to access the little panel to remove the sender. The trunk mat is original and VERY BRITTLE, pick it up at any edge and come away with a quarter size piece of mat. Mentioning this to my wife, she suggested that if we could remove the mat, she would bond cloth to the underside of major existing cracks and then bond cloth to the entire underside, holding it all together. The following pics show Lori's efforts.