My DIY Bimini almost there.

I posted a while ago about input and seeing what other people had done in regards to making their own DIY bimini for their boat.

For myself I don't really have too much of a need for a bimini as it never really gets so burning hot on the lake that you need one around where I live and boat locally. Now that we have our summer home in the interior it gets a little warmer as it is a desert type area. Last year for the first week of July it was 42 deg ( 108 F) for a few days with not an ounce of wind. Needless to say it gets a little hot. Because I don't have a need for a bimini all the time I didn't really want to spend huge dollars on one. My next boat I will spend the $ 700 and get a good one.

Anyway after some brain storming and figuring out what kind of materials to use this is what I have come up with.

My Ex's dad owns a muffler shop here locally in town so I had him bend and weld me some 1 1/2" exhaust pipe to the frame shape that I had drawn for him ( $ 160.00). I then called an awning/sign company about making canvas top for it. The owner of the sign company ended up having some Sunbrella material which was great. ( $ 150 cash) I am now currently finishing off spraying it with black Trem Clad paint. If I didn't need this thing done and ready for my next weeks holiday's I probably would have spent the bit extra to have it powder coated.

As far as mounting it to the tower. Again if I had a bit more time I would try and make some better brackets to hold but I ended up just drilling through all four posts of the tower into the bimini frame. I am then using 5" bolts with wing nuts and washers to hold it in place. This thing with the four bolts will not move. It was nice and rigid. Now when I finish it up I will finally get the water/wind test and see how it does.

I am just in the process of painting the frame then I can run the string around the frame to mount the canvas. After next week I'll have some better pics of the finished product but these give you the idea.

Looks good.. Just not sure about that piece that slants down in the front.. you dont think that will create alot of drag?

^^^ yeah not about it either. the rest looks good

Looks like you can smack your head pretty good on that when passing through the walkthrough.

Yeah, it'll create more down force on the boat hence a larger wake. Pretty nice work just reverse and flip that thing and you'll be all set.

I like it I think it looks good the way it is, nice work

So you did it nice job. Are you going to load some surf boards on there too?

I am making mine out of conduit, but I thought about doing it with exhaust pipe. I am going over the tower though. Yours looks nice, looks very strong.

Issac & 882001 - When the boat is under power the front piece won't be on such an angle so I don't think it will be that bad but we'll see. I had already thought about taking some of the bend out as well once I saw it up there.

As far as height it sits about 5' off the floor of the boat so it's still pretty high. I couldn't go much higher due to the speakers and lights above and I didn't want it mounted flush with the top anyway. The higher the bimini the less shade it provides.

Scott- I have a surf board rack so I probably won't put them up there but I was thinking about getting a cargo net for some bags and stuff to store up there. I have little to no storage space in the boat so it would be nice to get some gear off the floor.