agallant80
Commander
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2010
- Messages
- 2,328
I had a member PM me about how I made my cover. I wrote him back but figured I would post the answer incase it can help anyone else. I have some photos will try to post them later today when I get back home from the office.
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I ended up buying the sunbrella fabric off of ebay. Be careful when you buy it. There are allot of people selling sunbrella like material and word the listing so if you look at it real quick you may think its sunbrella but its not.
I ended up getting my snaps at a local fabric store they sold sainless steel snaps. I did buy a crimp tool but the way it crimps it is not very strong. I would suggest buying a hammer type crimp tool where you position the die over the shaft to be crimped and lightly tap it with a hammer. A note on crimping. Cut the smallest hole you can to just get the shaft of the snap to go through. If you make it too large you will end up ripping your fabric.
My boat already had the snaps screwed in to the hull and windshield for the camper canvass so I did not have to put snaps on the boat. When putting them on the fabric you will have to reinforce them. What I ended up doing was sewing the cloth togeather, laying it over the boat and started to trim it to the shape I needed. I left about 1.5 inches extra. I then got some nylon strapping (like you see on backpacks flat about 2 inches wide, I folded the fabric over it and sewed it in to place.
One tip on working with the fabric is to use a stapler instead of pins, it went much faster and I was able to staple it where ever I needed to. Once I had everything stapled I sewed it on the machine then I removed the staples.
Once that was done and I had the cover sewn and reinforced on the edges I put the cover back on the boat. I used a fabric pencel to mark where the snaps went. I marked a few snaps on one side put them on, put the cover back on the boat, snapped in the snaps, pulled the cover tight on the other side and marked where the snaps go on the other side. I repeated the process until all of the snaps were on. the cover fits the boat pretty tight now.
I am assuming you will be using a sewing machine. Make sure you buy jeans needles as the standard needles are too thin and will break, also make sure you get thread for outdoor not just any regular nylon thread. I ended up buying two spools and used about 1.25 spools.
As for your stitch you can use a straight stitch but I went with a zigzag type stitch for the extra strength.
#-----------------------------Message-----------------------------------------------
I ended up buying the sunbrella fabric off of ebay. Be careful when you buy it. There are allot of people selling sunbrella like material and word the listing so if you look at it real quick you may think its sunbrella but its not.
I ended up getting my snaps at a local fabric store they sold sainless steel snaps. I did buy a crimp tool but the way it crimps it is not very strong. I would suggest buying a hammer type crimp tool where you position the die over the shaft to be crimped and lightly tap it with a hammer. A note on crimping. Cut the smallest hole you can to just get the shaft of the snap to go through. If you make it too large you will end up ripping your fabric.
My boat already had the snaps screwed in to the hull and windshield for the camper canvass so I did not have to put snaps on the boat. When putting them on the fabric you will have to reinforce them. What I ended up doing was sewing the cloth togeather, laying it over the boat and started to trim it to the shape I needed. I left about 1.5 inches extra. I then got some nylon strapping (like you see on backpacks flat about 2 inches wide, I folded the fabric over it and sewed it in to place.
One tip on working with the fabric is to use a stapler instead of pins, it went much faster and I was able to staple it where ever I needed to. Once I had everything stapled I sewed it on the machine then I removed the staples.
Once that was done and I had the cover sewn and reinforced on the edges I put the cover back on the boat. I used a fabric pencel to mark where the snaps went. I marked a few snaps on one side put them on, put the cover back on the boat, snapped in the snaps, pulled the cover tight on the other side and marked where the snaps go on the other side. I repeated the process until all of the snaps were on. the cover fits the boat pretty tight now.
I am assuming you will be using a sewing machine. Make sure you buy jeans needles as the standard needles are too thin and will break, also make sure you get thread for outdoor not just any regular nylon thread. I ended up buying two spools and used about 1.25 spools.
As for your stitch you can use a straight stitch but I went with a zigzag type stitch for the extra strength.