Building your own bimini...

[D Wrate]

Has anyone attempted this?

My wife is a decent seamstress but it is the bending of the tubing that has me concerned...

[bcooke]

A tube bending tool makes the bending part pretty easy. Of course the tools don't come cheap...

Depending on the thickness and material of the tubing, you could also build a form and bend the tubing around it. The form supports the inside diameter of the bending tube and prevents it from kinking.

And then you could just go the PVC tubing route and use those angled joint fittings to make the corners.

-Britton

[Peter]

Don Casey's book "Canvas Work & Sail Repair" (it's in the Victoria Library) shows you how to make a simple tube bender. This type of bender was used to make the dodger on my previous boat, a Lancer 25 Mk V. It works well if you can attach the thing to a wooden floor, over a pattern of the bow to be bent, and use a long 2 x 4 as a lever. 1" stainless tubing (filled with sand to prevent kinking) can be bent satisfactorily.


My first bender was made from plans available from
http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/pipe/index.html
It was fun, took a while, and gave me a tool that bent conduit to a 6-8" radius satisfactorily. This radius turned out to be too small for the dodger so Casey's idea was employed instead.

The other option would be to make cardboard patterns and have a shop bend the bows ... probably easier than 're-inventing the wheel' like I seem to always end up doing :-0

I used a shop in Central Saanich (off Keatings Cross Road) to bend up a swim ladder. I can't remember the name of the shop as it was several years ago. They bought some high-end bending equipment after we had that 4 foot snow fall in Jan 98 (?) that collapsed all the boat houses on top of the boats and destroyed most of their railings. I understand they were busy for quite a while!

[windrose]

Peter, I am very impressed with your dodger. Casey shows the jig in This Old Boat.... I thought hmmmm.... I have a heavy duty sewing machine with a walking foot, end of roll Sunbrella off ebay AND .... DELUSIONS OF GRANDUER, what more does a gal need? ;-)

Now back to that transducer.....HA! Ang

[Tim]

A tube bending tool makes the bending part pretty easy. Of course the tools don't come cheap...

Would a simple electrical conduit bender work for SS tubing? They're pretty inexpensive ($35 or so).

[D Wrate]

than conduit.

I think maybe for all of the effort it might be just as easy to buy a Taylormade bimini and adapt to fit...