canvas cover materials explained please.

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pcatterall

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Just looking at North Point, hawke house and other well known suppliers and hoping to find good recommendations for various applications but without success.
In Spain uv degradation is an issue and we now need to make a new cockpit cover Is treated acrylic the way to go ? I guess the thread to use is polyester? any tips please?
 
I use Sauleda PU coated acrylic canvas from Point North Profabrics and have found it to be very good, mind you I don't sail in the Med. It may be worth spending a few extra pounds for the Top Gun, have a word with them on the phone, I have found them helpful in the past. They are based near Chester.

Use coated for things you want to be very waterpooof like sprayhoods and uncoated if you want the fabric to breathe more, maybe for sail covers. In between wasting lots of time on here I am, right now, making a new cockpit cover myself. ?

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doug748 said:
I use Sauleda PU coated acrylic canvas from Point North Profabrics and have found it to be very good, mind you I don't sail in the Med. It may be worth spending a few extra pounds for the Top Gun, have a word with them on the phone, I have found them helpful in the past. They are based near Chester.

Use uncoated for things you want to be very waterpooof like sprayhoods and uncoated if you want the fabric to breathe more, maybe for sail covers. In between wasting lots of time on here I am, right now, making a new cockpit cover myself. ?
Click to expand...
 
We have been sailing in the Mediterranean since 2005. In that time we have had two hoods and a cockpit winter cover made in UK that shrunk so much that they became unusable. The cockpit winter cover that we had made in Greece is in far heavier material, maybe rubberised canvas of some sort, that has survived very well for a number of years. I cannot advise its name but I doubt that it is available from the outlets you mention.

After our poor experience with expensive UK materials, both coated acrylic of some sort, we were advised to use Weathermax WM80, with which our current hood was made. This seems to be lasting well.

Our bimini was bought in Spain in 2005 and lasted through to 2018, when it was worn out. We also replaced that in Weathermax WM80. Both hood and bimini are stitched in Tenara for better UV resistance.
 
We have not managed to find a European equivalent of the US product Sunbrella. So we import it for our projects. It's pricey, but is the only thing we have found that really lasts. There are often bargains to be had on Ebay or you can go to somewhere like Sailrite for specific colours, finishes etc. For things that are more complex we use the basic marine grade product, it is soft enough to handle when sewing complex shapes but still strong. We made our sprayhood of this. For the Bimini, sail cover etc we are now using Sunbrella Plus, it has an anti fungal resin based coating. This makes it much stiffer to use but greatly increases the waterproofing. Sunbrella fabrics come with a 10 year warranty.
As far as thread goes we use a uv proof one from Sailrite V-92. If we did not have a vast stock of this already we would switch to their lifetime thread which is covered by a lifetime warranty! The cost of the materials is minor compared to the hours it generally takes to complete a project so we are happy to pay a higher price and ensure a long life for the finished item!
We are currently replacing our 25 year old Bimini that spent 10 years in the Tropics and weathered a number of Atlantic crossings.....it was made of regular Sunbrella. We have renewed all the stitching a number of times but the fabric is only just beginning to fail.
 
I have made a sprayhood from Top Gun but the fabric is a very different feel/look to the usual Sauleda or Sunbrella. You might not like it so check out a piece first before buying too much.

I'm only UK based but any of these solution dyed fabrics, where the yarn is coloured, rather than a later colouring of the fabric should hold colour well.

If using coated fabric, remember to have the coated side on the underneath/inside as well.

As to thread, I've used Solarfix V138 for the past five years... Trickier to set up to start with but I've had a few sprayhoods over the years, that even with a v92 polyester thread, start to look like the exposed threads are about to wear out. PTFE thread is very slippery through the tension discs.

Expensive but one spool lasts a while

SolarFix PTFE V138 thread
 
pcatterall said:
Just looking at North Point, hawke house and other well known suppliers and hoping to find good recommendations for various applications but without success.
In Spain uv degradation is an issue and we now need to make a new cockpit cover Is treated acrylic the way to go ? I guess the thread to use is polyester? any tips please?
Click to expand...
Hi Peter Hello again hope all well in Burriana. I have that problem down the coast from you a bit.. previous owners on my boat made a “sacrificial covering” to go over the spray hood to protect it. Owner was nifty with sewing machine and a few bits of webbing etc. fits snugly over the top and cheaper to renew than complete sprayhood.. no windows but it’s ok for shelter from sun like that!
 
With a cockpit cover apart from UV damage you must also consider damage to the fabric from flapping in the wind. Hence you need a robust fabric and any coating may be shed. A tight cover for a main sail is a lot easier to manage as it essentially does not flap but a larger area of cockpit cover is a much greater problem. Try to support the cover as best possible and keep it tight. ol'will
 
You might look in on activefabrics. co. uk and Esvo camping, based in the Netherlands. I've used both and they have a very good selection, especially Esvo.
 
I’ve been using acrylic canvas from Point North for years for projects. They used to sell an unbranded acrylic (coated and uncoated) which I used to make a stack pack and bimini on the Greece based boat: both are still in fine shape after 7 or 8 years use. The last order I had from them (earlier this year) was Sauleda which seemed no different to their previous unbranded stuff: too early to say about longevity….
I use their UV resistant thread: just come to the end of a reel of the stuff I bought year ago, mistakenly ordered a much bigger reel than I needed…. New thread is available in smaller reels but seems to be the same stuff, which I’ve found to be good: no problems with perishing threads at all.
 
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