Industry Guide List
Success Story
For the last 15 years, Oklahoma Custom Canvas has been Oklahoma's leading provider of quality awnings, canopies, covers, and marine canvas.
Marine Canvas
About
The Marine Canvas industry differs from similar textile industries because of custom patterning requirements for each job. Unlike awnings, sailshades, and sailmaking where standard or popular design software is available for both modeling and production, the Marine Canvas industry still requires most patterns made onsite and copied manually.
Carlson Design plotter/cutters, digitizers, and patterning software combined make an excellent marine canvas design/cutting solution. Our T-bar Digitizer allows you to manually trace any field pattern or recover as fast as you could chalk a new cut...however now it's stored digitally and can be easily modified with seam allowances or broken up to maximize material yield.
See an old Catalina 25' boom cover digitized and cut start to finish: http://vimeo.com/29807663
Storing patterns means no more trips to the boat for recovers. Roll out your cloth and hit "Plot"! We also have easy-to-use software for making Boom covers, Biminis, Pedastal Covers, Sail Bags, Bags, and Drogues. Just add basic measurements.
Marine Fabricator Story: http://marinefabricatormag.com/articles/0508_f1_technology.html
Which Plotter/Cutter
Both are great machines, however the PT is more robust and therefore better in a production or heavy work environment or where you are cutting heavier material like vinyl for dodgers. At 72" wide, both machines will cut up to 64" (1.62m) wide material, which accommodates most bolt widths for this industry. The Standard Rotary Blade holder will cut most fabrics used.
Which Vacuum Table
Phillocraft or homemade vacuum table -- recommend 24' long or longer for best efficiency. Use a 3 or 5HP Radial vacuum blower. More vacuum needed on longer tables and vacuum bagging if cutting mesh.
Which Accessories:
These can be added at anytime.
- T-Bar Digitizer - rides in the same track as your plotter/cutter and ideal for digitizing physical patterns.
- Carbide Drag Blade Holder - ideal for cutting vinyl, leathers, or detailed patterns.
- Sign Knife - cut lettering or numbers.
- Hot Knife Attachment - heat seal the edge of all acrylics. Requires metal cutting surface.
Which Software:
Plotmaster, which includes patterning, nesting, and plotting/cutting, comes standard. We also recommend Boomcover, Bimini cover, sailcut, Pedestal cover, sail bags, bags, and drogues. Most of these are shareware programs come standard with the PMU software suite.
You can load your own Windows PC or we can provide one preloaded and tested.
Input these options into our BUILDER to start pricing your own marine canvas system.
