Good source for Marine Vinyl?

OK, been doing the google gig for a few days now. I see plenty of supply places, but not many specs that make sense to me.

I'm reskinning the baot this spring and want to find:

1. A durable vinyl in cream/off white color and a tan color.

2. I know there is a vinyl that does not get hot and burn you in the sun - don't know the spec to look for though.

3. Not too sure about a decent weight that will last 8-10 years.

Anyone know about this stuff?

Also looking for a good source of heavy 1970s style tent canvas...

I needed some vinyl to recover my 90 prostar observer seat and after seeing several vinyl guys with lots of samples I couldn't get the exact thing to replace so I called Mastercraft and got the product # and color code for that year of boat and ordered the exact vinyl from MC... I think it was only about $8 a yard which is fairly cheap... You might consider doing this with whatever boat you own...

Can't, they don't have the material anymore.

I can get the prod #, but they don't have any suppliers.

Most companies in the biz buy from Astrup but I think they dont sell retail. Mostly just Sunbrella at http://www.outdoorfabrics.com/ but they have cushions, thread and other accy's that may help. Found these sites that may help:

http://www.upholster.com/howto/upholstry.htm

http://canvasdealer.com/weblon_regatta.asp

http://www.foamfabbed.com/

thanks monster. I'll check them out. I'm really looking for the type of vinyl that doesn't burn ya.

This place seems to be a pretty good resource for the DIY boat upholsterer:

http://www.garysupholstery.com/

FWIW, I don't think I've EVER encountered unreasonably hot white or tan vinyl so maybe any marine vinyl would fit that criterion.

Salmon Tacos,

I thought the same thing. I've never felt hot white/tan vinyl. I have gray, now that's hot. Is there vinyl made in darker colors that doesn't get hot? Sounds Impossible

adam,

I was thinking about this and the only practical way I could think of to make a dark vinyl that wouldn't burn you is to decrease it's thermal conductivity to something well below that of your skin. First, it would not get quite as hot because rather than efficiently transferring the energy that it is absorbing (it has to absorb the sun's radiation to be dark-colored) into the body of the material, more of it would be transferred into the air through convection. It might still get pretty hot but when you touched it, it would not be able to conduct large amounts of heat energy into your skin when you touched it.

The only other way I can think of would be if the vinyl actually absorbed all visible wavelengths and fluoresced the energy as infrared radiation. I don't think that would be possible.

SO...I'm guessing that a burn-resistant vinyl would probably incorporate tiny air bubbles that would function to decrease thermal conductivity. Imagine touching black foam rubber that's been sitting in the sun...no big deal. I know I've seen such things made of such a vinyl "microfoam" material before but I'm not sure where. I don't know what that kind of structure would do to the feel, workability, and durability of the material though.

boltaflex

ben,

Yeah, the Colorguard 2000 appears pretty durable:

http://www.garysupholstery.com/bfcg2000.html

They have "padded" type vinyl, which I'm suspecting may be the no burn types.

Increased air flow beneath the vinyl layer? Dunno.

It wouldn't be the air flow. The air cells would just make the material less conductive, i.e. less capable of quickly conducting, into itself, the energy that is generated from the absorbtion of electromagnetic radiation on the surface, and also less capable of quickly conducting that energy out into your skin.

Anyway, that BoltaFlex Colorguard 2000 stuff looks really nice for durability, mold/mildew resistance, bacterial growth resistance, colorfastness, etc. If I were to re-skin my boat, I'd probably go with that. There might be a better polyurethane product out there but it would probably cost 5 times more. Hey, you could always do leather!