Snap hooks are an easy way to attach sail shades and frame straps using a common deck-eye (or pad-eye) mount. After 20 years of teaching the art of canvas-making and fabricating canvas for our customers, I have become a whistleblower on myself. Seeking humility requires a true confession, after all. Even the best shops fall [...]

The author says that always striving to do your best work, with the best materials, on each project means you'll always have happy customers. If you read this magazine with any regularity, you will see many examples of excellence on these pages. These artistic fabricators are perfectionists when it comes to the art of canvas [...]

A perfect fit using the actual finish-fabric to produce the pattern produces a perfect fit when finished. Most everyone is familiar with the term patterning: as in to make a pattern of something. Basic patterning requires a material with which to create the pattern such as a clear plastic like Canvex®, Tyvek® or even cardboard. [...]

Fabric fitting gives marine professionals complete control over the outcome of their enclosure panels. When my father started our boat canvas business in the early 1970s, he had no one to ask how to do things or how to improve the fit of a front panel. So we developed a fabric-fitting technique that allows you [...]

To detect wrinkles, look through the glass at objects in the background. Every fabricator seems to have issues fitting windshields, myself included. Over the past 20 years, I’ve developed some techniques to help make perfect windshields and I’d like to share them with you. Using one of our canvas training facility’s classroom models, we created [...]

This California-style dodger has five attachable panels that can be used in any configuration. California-style dodgers provide maximum flexibility for different sailing conditions. I have been a sailor longer than I have been a marine fabricator. In fact, being a sailor is how I got into this business. I often hear from fellow fabricators that the [...]

When fabricating a bimini top, doing things in the right order is as important as the technique itself. When I was asked to write about making a bimini top in 1,000 words or less, I knew this would be a challenge, considering that I probably speak 1,000 words during each step of the process when [...]

Center console boats are a popular style of boat in Yorktown, Va. The author believes that center console enclosures are some of the most complicated enclosures to design, and also among the most rewarding. Center console boats are a popular style of boat in my area, Yorktown, Va., along with sportfish, cruisers, trawlers and sailboats. [...]

Here’s an example of a rigid solar panel setup designed for DIY and professional marine solar installations. An increasing number of jobs at Gemini Marine Canvas & Marine Products (GMP) in Rockland, Maine, begin with clients bringing in rigid solar panels. Rigid panels remain a firm favorite among boaters looking to augment their onboard electricity [...]

Photo 1. Clients were initially reluctant to accept the horizontal frame because it was a drastic change from the standard ‘K’ frame. However, the added square footage of usable deck area overcame these doubts, and the demand for horizontal frame systems and cantilever support systems is strong. Following the typical 10-to-20-year delay that “new ideas” [...]