Making a cockpit cover for an HST

[alaskastreamin]

Since I am going to be trailering the HST to Minnesota and the new owner requested it, I decided to build a cockpit cover to save the new interior from the road goo.

I ordered 4 yards of 60” wide sunbrella fabric.

Stretched it out over the boat and chalked the body lines. The windscreen was made separate in 4 pieces.

It’s recommended to “hot knife” the fabric to keep the fibers from fraying.

I added headliner material to the back side of these panels to help protect the windscreen.

Once i sewed it together, I folded over the seam allowance and French stitched in felt to soften these edges.

The cover fits great and once I get the snaps in, it will be tight as a drum.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[alaskastreamin]

I ran masking tape around the perimeter, marked off 6” spacing and 1/2” below the edge of the deck. (The cover was made to go 1” below the edge).

I was planning on using pop rivets to attach the male buttons but saw that I had bags of thread in buttons . These don’t use the flange against the gel and look cleaner PLUS you can remove them to polish if needed.

They had #8-32 threads and the tap took the 1/8” hole perfectly. I chucked the tap in the drill and I zipped threads in the 55 holes in no time.

I started marking the windscreen edge first and added the snaps then the rear center pulling it tight.
After that it was going side to side pulling, marking and installing snaps.

All in all I have $200 and 12 hours into this project.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Hippie459MN]

Looks great Ron! You sell the hst or sending it here for the frost your nuts off run?

[ Post made via Android ]