Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I've been searching the forums and haven't found a definitive answer. Do you have to preshrink? I can't find where anyone had disastrous results, just fear of bad results. It seems to me that the canvas getting tighter would be a good thing. So if you left extra and/or firmly attached the edges (I'm going over wood and could put in temporary staples) would that not work or am I missing something?

It depends alot on the canvas how much it will shrink... or so i was told making enquiries,the drill canvas i used (diagonal weave)
Only shrinks around 2 -5%
Some other canvas can shrink more like 25%plus.
I preshrunk mine but only by wetting it down with water and letting it dry out in the sun so it would still have some shrinkage left to do.
Im no expert but i asked alot of questions here and at canvas suppliers.
Hope thats of some help

Consider this , even if canvas is pre-shrunk , can it not be stretched again when applied wet , and then shrink again ...

GPW wrote:Consider this , even if canvas is pre-shrunk , can it not be stretched again when applied wet , and then shrink again ...

It won't stretch out to its original size, though.

When I did the Big Pink, I did not preshink the canvas on the sides, and it worked out great.
On the top, I preshrunk by wetting it, and that also worked out great. I couldn't really tell the difference either way.

I preshrunk my canvas.

I am glad I did. I hardly shrank in the width, 72" to 71", but it shrunk a lot in the length. 10 feet became 8.5 feet.

There is no way I wanted a down the road issue with the canvas shrinking once on the tear.
It doesn't take any time, so why not?

Some shrinking is Good , it tightens up the bond between foam and canvas .... just not too much ...

I did not pre-shrink the cheap drop cloth canvas on either tear.

Thanks for the replies. Guess I'll play it by ear. Not really looking forward to trying to wash and iron that big of a piece of material.

As we found , the real trick using un-shrunk canvas was to leave enough extra material on the ends so you can trim it when it’s dry ... If you fit/cut it first , it may shrink beyond where it’s supposed to ...

GPW wrote:As we found , the real trick using un-shrunk canvas was to leave enough extra material on the ends so you can trim it when it’s dry ... If you fit/cut it first , it may shrink beyond where it’s supposed to ...

Yeah......what he said.