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The Tools, Tips and Tricks contest, sponsored by the Marine Fabricators Association (MFA), is an annual feature at the Marine Fabricators Conference. Attendees submit ideas that have improved their shop life and fellow conference-goers vote for their top three to win prizes.
At the 2026 conference, submitters shared additional details about their entries and answered audience questions. We wanted to bring some of that experience to our readers and give these great sparks of inspiration extra attention.
The following tools, tips and tricks are from this year’s contest — all three prize winners and some of our favorite honorable mentions. We hope the following pages offer at least one “a-ha” moment that makes operating your business a little less tedious.
If you have your own ideas to share, keep an eye on the Marine Fabricator and MFA websites for the 2027 contest announcement. What may seem simplistic or of low importance to one fabricator could be a shop-changing lightbulb to another.
Track System
by Tommy Parks, Rocket Upholstery in Berlin, Md.
Standing up and sitting down all day takes its toll, so it’s no small thing to find a way to stay efficient and immobile.
“The idea of [the track system] is not to take all the weight off — just get some of it up off your table and take some of the weight off so it’ll go underneath the needle without you having to get up so much,” he says. “[You can] get through that whole assembly without ever having to get up, and [it] just keeps moving right on down the line. When you’re done with it … you can just grab it and slide it back.”
This system comes in handy with a bigger binding project.
“If you gather it up in the center, you get a lot of that stuff off the table. It shortens everything up in the center,” says Parks.
If a fabricator is working on repairs for acrylic or polycarbonate and the plastic coating is already removed, two suction cups attached to the system’s clamps can be affixed near the center of the panel, and it pulls up so the whole piece floats.
“That way, you can sew along your zipper line and the panel’s never touching the ground,” says Parks. “Hard to scratch the panel while it’s in mid-air.”
This tip won Gold in the 2026 Tools, Tips and Tricks contest.
Never Lose Your Thread Snips
by Todd Hansen, Seahawk Marine Canvas LLC in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Misplacing thread snips is maybe as frustrating as losing your car keys. Unfortunately, many industrial machines do not have an automatic thread snip.
Enter this handy trick by Todd Hansen. He clipped a retractable key holder to his sewing machine to make sure his thread snips were always nearby. Simply cut and let go, and the snips automatically retract.
“I am up and down from my machine to my patterning table, and on more than one occasion my thread snips would get knocked to the floor or misplaced during sewing,” Hansen says, “so I came up with this retractable lanyard to clip onto my machine to make the snips easy to use and store.”
This trick has saved Hansen several minutes per day, which adds up over the course of a week, month or year. He notes that every machine is different, so this exact setup may not fit every fabricator’s needs, but a similar solution can have a significant impact.
This tip won Silver in the 2026 Tools, Tips and Tricks contest.
Suction Cup with Bungee Attachment
by Mike Boatman, Boatman Marine Canvas in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Mike Boatman’s dad came up with this trick years ago, after previously using duct tape. The suction cup with bungee attachment is perfect for “when you are making a cockpit cover and need to keep the material fastened in place,” says Boatman.
“All you need is a few suction cups with attached bungees. Make a small cut in the material, fasten the suction cups and then place on the windshield. Now your material is locked down and ready to be marked.”
This trick makes work a lot easier “because if you have to adjust it, you just move the cups where you need them,” Boatman says. “If you had it taped down, you’ll be wasting tape and more time when you have to adjust the material.”
This trick won Bronze in the 2026 Tools, Tips and Tricks contest.
Adjustable Frame Straps for Patterning/Measuring
by Kyle Van Damme, MFC, Marine Tops Unlimited in Omro, Wis.
Kyle Van Damme’s dad Carl first came up with this idea a few decades ago. The straps are adjustable and make it easy to quickly tension a set of bows before patterning them.
“This was a reusable way to do this rather than wasting strapping tape,” says Kyle Van Damme. “They snap on easily using DOT snaps that stay secure until intentionally released, and each strap includes a slider to quickly increase or reduce tension.”
The shop created multiple strap lengths using different colors of webbing, which coordinate with the strap’s length to find whatever the employees need faster. There are overlapping size ranges to cover various gaps between bows, arches or frame components. Small Keder-welt adapters with DOT snaps allow the straps to be used in track systems.
“This setup makes it easy to pre-tension frames, keep them symmetrical and prepare accurately for Proliner work or traditional patterning,” says Van Damme. He notes that some types of webbing work better for the slides than others.
Clear Vinyl Storage
by Mike Charpentier, Paul’s Custom Canvas in Denver, Colo.
Storing clear vinyl sheets isn’t always simple; even if they’re kept in the roll they came in, taking one piece out at a time and doing so without scratching it is a chore.
Mike Charpentier solved this problem by building a shelf that slides under the shop’s main table.
“This also allows us to have other things on the table and not have to clean it off when we need a sheet,” he says. “We don’t lose half our table laying out the sheets to keep them flat.”
The idea came from a fellow fabricator who uses a table with a hinged lift top to store vinyl. While that design didn’t work with Paul’s Custom Canvas’s existing tables, a shelf that lives underneath them does the trick.
“The wheels allow us to easily push the cart under the table out of the way and pull it out as needed to easily lift the sheets,” says Charpentier. “This allows for easy storage under the table that rolls straight every time.”
The shelf took about an hour to build, and Charpentier was advised to only stack eight sheets or less at a time. The shop used straight castors for the table’s wheels.
Winch Lift
by Mike Boatman, Boatman Marine Canvas in Oklahoma City, Okla.
A Boatman Marine Canvas employee who works on interiors designed and rigged up this winch lift. It helps staff raise big rear-engine lids on boats.
The boat winch is attached to the steel frame of the building; the shop runs a couple of coated steel cables up to one set and out to another set of pulleys.
The cables drop with a four-pound sandbag attached to keep the cables pulled down. Attached are a few well-placed hooks, a safety wire and a couple of clamps. The hooks go in the back side of the rear lid.
“Crank it up with the winch, unbolt it and raise that rear lid off the boat,” says Boatman. “We can raise and remove even the largest rear engine lids for repair with ease.”
Anyone rigging a similar system should be sure to use a very heavy winch lift and very strong hooks, and it will spare unnecessary effort in the shop.
“It definitely saves us manpower and possibly injuring ourselves lifting these heavy, fiberglass backed lids,” says Boatman.
The Window Book
by Kyle Van Damme, MFC, Marine Tops Unlimited in Omro, Wis.
Documentation isn’t the flashiest idea, but it can have a big impact. Kyle Van Damme was inspired by a presentation at a past Marine Fabricators Conference to develop the Window Book — a customer-facing, padded, zip-up sample book with soft sleeves that holds small 2-inch x 3-inch window samples.
It includes examples of every clear material used by Marine Tops Unlimited, along with different finishing methods, U-zip styles, U-zip-with-screen options and various screen configurations for camper-back enclosures.
“Customers can touch, see and compare options so they clearly understand what they are selecting before ordering,” says Kyle Van Damme.
The team spent one full day’s worth of time assembling the book, which also serves as a visual training tool for employees involved in design, cutting and sewing.
With its protective design, Van Damme says that it “keeps samples in great condition and makes it easy to take to customer boats or boat shows, while helping upsell higher-quality window materials and the right screen options.”
“We want these window samples to stay in great shape, so they look new and not all beat up to the customers that are looking to view them,” he adds.
