Additional carpeting in boat

[mib_mn]

Hey guys, I have seen or heard sevarl guys talk about adding additional carpet or rugs to the bow and back of the boat to help protect the original carpet or even change the color to reduce heat. Have any of you done this, have any suggestions on how to do it, or even some pics to get a good idea?

Thanks

[REW]

Mib,
Sure, easy to do.
1. obtain some stiff paper of the necessary size to make a pattern for the area you want to carpet.
You can generally obtain some of the stiffer paper at some of the various shops.

2. Remove the seat pedestals and clear the area as much as possible.

3. Use the paper and make a nice fitting pattern for the area you want to carpet.

4. Go to your local big box store, and pick up a piece of carpet that is as large or larger than the size you want to cover. Pick up some carpet that will hole up to weather, but still looks nice. If you want to spend more money, you can go to one of the marine supply stores and pick up "marine carpet".

5. Lay the piece of carpet - face down on a piece of plywood, so that you can cut the carpet, without dulling your knife and without doing damage to any floor that you might be doing the cutting on.

6. Lay the pattern over the carpet - face side down (don't mix up the face up and face down side of the pattern.

7. Use a carpet knife that has a long straight blade to cut out the new carpet.
(typical carpet knife - http://hand-tools.hardwarestore.com/...es-668697.aspx )

8. I have done this a few times over the years, and I decided to bind the edges of the carpet this time. I own a heavy duty industrial sewing machine and I spent a couple of hours binding the edges of the carpet and the carpet cut outs with carpet binding tape. The binding prevents the carpet from fraying.

Most carpet shops will do this service for you if you would like the carpet bound.

But, even if you do not bind the carpet, and if you picked a carpet with a nice tight weave, there will be little issues with the edges fraying very much.

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When done, lay in the new carpet, and replace the seat pedestals and anything else that you might have removed.

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When doing this consider the area that you want to carpet. If you have lots of cut outs with very little space between the cutouts, it will not work very well to carpet the very thin areas. If you do want carpet in the general area, you are likely better off to just leave the very thin areas not carpeted.

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In actual use, just vacuum and or clean as usual. But if you happen to have a very dirty and or gut filled trip, then just pull out the carpet, lay it on the driveway and hose and scrub it off. Much easier to clean in the driveway than in the boat.

REW

[fireboat]

I bought a piece of marine grade carpet to cover over the factory carpet in the back of my boat. Just take it out and hose it off in the driveway when it gets dirty. After 5 yrs my factory carpet still looks like new, no squashed minnows or crawlers. Don't leave it in if it's wet. Be careful what kind you buy, hooks are easily removed from marine carpet. Only cut holes for the seat bases you're going to use. I never had a problem with it blowing out driving down the road. Why take the boat to the car wash when you can just take the carpet?

[bobco]

I use some throw rugs , cheap ones from wally world, you can shake them off easy, wash them off over the side, wet them down when it is hot, placed where the snot rocket are going to hit the deck keeps the boat cleaner, becarefull about leaving multi layers of carpet etc on a wood floor, will speed up the rotting process.