Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I am brainstorming about an awning for our CT. I have a piece of aluminum awning rail to attach to the side and I have some heavy duty tent poles to use for the outer edge. But what material/fabric should I use?

I was thinking of a standard tarp with rope encapsulated in it to slide through the rail but How to encapsulate the rope? I don't think you can sew poly tarp material. Is there a way to weld poly tarp onto itself?

I searched online for awning material and I found this stuff; BTF-19 Fabric: PVC Coated High-Tenacity Polyester. It is designed to be used for commercial and residential awning applications. Comes 86" wide and you order it by the yard. Kind of pricey $30.86 per yard. But it sounds like it would last a long time and I think this stuff can be sewn!

Any suggestions from anybody???

Jim(B52), built a tent/awning to go with his motorcycle camper...he used regular silver tarp, used contact cement, applied in a strip 4" wide along the side...placed the rope in the center of this strip and folded it over to give him a 2" wide reinforced section for attachment...it has held up for several years now but was just an experiment, he is going to get some Sunbrella type fabric and sew up a regular tent/awning for it, using the tarps for patterns.........................
madjack

I used some fiberglass rods (from driveway reflectors) and just simply wrapped the tarp around the rod and started sliding it in. It works great.



On the other side I just took an old tarp and cut down a small piece for a side window awning. The nice thing about using a tarp is that its cheap to replace if ever necessary.

Bought some of this blue white striped stuff a few weeks ago:
http://www.rochfordsupply.com/shop/Text ... index.html

I used it to make curtains in my screen house, and cushion covers for some new benches we made. I have plenty left over, so was thinking of making some awnings for my trailer. Not sure how much they charged for shipping.

I find this company is great to work with, my products were delivered in 2 days!

The fabric does have a coating on the top of it.

Any ideas of how to attach it to the camper? I was thinking of just using velcro on the top of the camper. Not sure how to make the side posts.

BYW - yes you can sew the ploytarp material - both the blue and the grey types. I have made numerous tractor covers and such for farmers out of the stuff.

hunter535 wrote:I am brainstorming about an awning for our CT. I have a piece of aluminum awning rail to attach to the side and I have some heavy duty tent poles to use for the outer edge. But what material/fabric should I use?

I was thinking of a standard tarp with rope encapsulated in it to slide through the rail but How to encapsulate the rope? I don't think you can sew poly tarp material. Is there a way to weld poly tarp onto itself?

A couple of things. All my blue tarps have a string sewn into the edge of them. These are discount store and walmart tarps.

Secondly. The absolutely best stuff for canopies is Sunbrella. It's use on yachts and the canopies you see on pontoon boats. Heavy stuff that's attractive and almost impervious to sun/weather.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Y2BFI4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001Y2A4PE&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0RAK8AJZD4SG9EAQ2VTC

Sunbrella is a great fabric, one of the beat to use for long term. I tend to use the lower priced fabrics when first designing things, in case they do not work out.

A few years ago, when I got started making tarps, I found a couple of books about working with canvas. Both are for boats, but I found them invaluable with ideas for camping!

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Boat-Can ... 053&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Canvaswo ... 53&sr=8-11

I have made many fabric tarps out of fabric I have found in the bargain sections. One of the best was a coated nylon from which I built a 20x16 foot tarp. I put webbing every 12 inches and a spot in the middle for a pole. I can use that tarp for just about anything. Works wonders for make shift awnings!

I also use my fabric tarps to keep my stuff covered when camping. That way in case it rains, everything is not sopping wet!

I decided to follow the idea of others and I bought a poly tarp, black and silver in color. I will try this before I decide to buy some more permanent, expensive fabric. I cut it to size and I used 3M spray adhesize and folded the edges over to have a 1.5 inch overlap on the outside edges. The awning rail side I laid my piece of rope down, sprayed the adhesize onto the rope and the tarp and folded the tarp over the rope incapsulating the rope in the tarp. Installed some grommets in the neccessary locations and I plan on trying it tommorow. I will take pics and post later.

Keeping our fingers crossed it works!!!

Trial run with the poly tarp. It measures 13 1/2 feet wide by 11 1/2 feet out from the camper.Just need to get 2 more poles and a roller for the top of the door so it doesn't rip the awning when we open it.
worked pretty good but we did not have any rain either!