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Sewing a new cover

lakeliving

lakeliving

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We bought a nice paddle wheeler paddle boat recently and the cover is falling apart. The manufacturer wants over $200 for a new one and they have even hinted the quality is not good on them. With that said I ordered some surlast material, v69 thread, some size 16 through 20 needles, seamstick tape and some marine shock cord. The supplies should be here hopefully by the end of the week so I can get started.


I'm pretty handy and have sewn in the past so I'm thinking this should be a fairly easy project. Most recently I made pillow covers for our living room with hidden zippers.


I'll do a before and after photo once I get it done. If I remember I'll try and to some during photos as well.


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lakeliving said:
We bought a nice paddle wheeler paddle boat recently and the cover is falling apart. The manufacturer wants over $200 for a new one and they have even hinted the quality is not good on them. With that said I ordered some surlast material, v69 thread, some size 16 through 20 needles, seamstick tape and some marine shock cord. The supplies should be here hopefully by the end of the week so I can get started.


I'm pretty handy and have sewn in the past so I'm thinking this should be a fairly easy project. Most recently I made pillow covers for our living room with hidden zippers.


I'll do a before and after photo once I get it done. If I remember I'll try and to some during photos as well.


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I do this for a hobby. I recommend diamond tip needles for surlast, at least that's what I use on my Singer 111W.  Standard needles seems to puncture it more but I use size 20.  Definitely top stitch everything once you get it together. Fun project!
 
Thanks for the tip. I was planning on doing a standing seam I think it's called. Hopefully it turns out ok. 
 
Andy, where'd you buy your supplies? 
 
Sailrite aside from the surlast. I love their videos. Figured I'd support them based on their content and customer service. 
 
No soup for you! 
 
About how much will this project cost you? As opposed to the $200 the manufacturer wants?
 
lakeliving said:
Sailrite aside from the surlast. I love their videos. Figured I'd support them based on their content and customer service. 
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Yeah, I've watched a lot of their sewing videos. They sure make it look easy ....  :wacko:   Some of my practice stuff looks like a drunk guy did it ....  :lol:   


Next I'm going to practice making sammiches....  :D
 
BigKahuna said:
About how much will this project cost you? As opposed to the $200 the manufacturer wants?
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I have about $90 into the materials and it's enough to do two of them. The manufacturers fell apart in three years so it's obvious they are not using quality material. Canvas shops were quoting me $300. I figured I'd learn a new skill and get a better product doing it myself. 
 
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I started taking the old cover apart last night to get my template. It had a seam right down the middle so I'll took the stitching out of one side and will mirror it when cutting the new material. The remaining side I'll use as a reference so see how they sewed it etc.


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Have you played around with the machine and fabric to get your settings just right. I found out, it looks easier than actually doing it. I still have issues with tension, especially when back stitching. I'm gonna practice a lot before I start with expensive fabric ....  ;)
 
SEMPERFI8387 said:
Have you played around with the machine and fabric to get your settings just right. I found out, it looks easier than actually doing it. I still have issues with tension, especially when back stitching. I'm gonna practice a lot before I start with expensive fabric ....  ;)
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Not yet. I didn't want to cut samples to play with until I cut my pieces out. With my luck I would cut a piece off to play with and be 2" short!!! My goal is to roll the new material out later, add some excess due to shrinkage of the old cover and start playing with the scraps to get it dialed in. From what I've read our sewing machine is pretty stout for a home unit so it should handle it. It's a singer 9970.


If all else fails I know of a guy on Lake Fenton with a Bennington I could reach out to for help!!!
 
Also, Do you guys think I should cut the darts out like they did above or just sew them in? I would think leaving them in there and folding/sewing would provide better water protection.
 
What's a dart? The cutouts?
 
Yes. On the cover I took apart they are cut out. On the sailrite site they just fold them and sew it. 
 
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