Archives

Reinventing the Headliner: Done! DE38 s/v Sanpatricio

This past weekend marked the completion of the new headliner (cue trumpets), a much awaited milestone indeed! I could lie and say we did it all in a few weekends with minimal effort and planning, but nothing could be further from the truth. It was tricky and there were several setbacks along the way, but having a classy looking overhead that is both easily removable (for deck maintenance) and easy on the eyeballs is reward enough.

 

  #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

 For those of you out there looking up at you’re dingy, old 70’s naugahyde/viynl headliner with contempt, glower no more. With a fair amount of patience and work, you to can have a new overhead without the need of huge outlays of cash. Just be prepared for the process to reveal additional projects long hidden by that groovy, fake leather…held in by hundreds of rusty staples…for decades. Your mettle will be tested my friends.

The fictitious “Nauga” was part of a 1960s ad campaign for Naugahyde.

First things first – the DEMOLITION! We had the great intention of carefully removing each headliner section to preserve for template making…a lovely thought, but we quickly learned it’s impossible. The headliner was affixed to the cabin top and sides with roughly 1,000,000 staples, most of which were rusty, brittle and stubborn. The staples numbered as many as stars in the Milky Way. Seriously! It took the better part of 2 days to remove them, our hands tender from prolonged plier gripping. We surmised that the original installer must have been paid per staple. Curse you Staple Man!

  #gallery-2 { margin: auto; } #gallery-2 .gallery-item { float: […]