Matworks Duraweave carpets
Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:54 pm
I got tired of the ratty 10 year old original carpets in my A25, a few small pieces of which had gone missing over the years, so I went through the process of templating and installing a set of Matworks Duraweave snap-in carpets.
While Matworks has a bunch of templates on hand, the A25 wasn't one of them. The templating process with a roll of 4 mil plastic sheeting and a Sharpie was not as bad as I expected. I ended up doing part of it in the boat (recommended) and the more complicated pieces (ie the weird one around the captain's chair) out of the boat by tracing the existing carpet piece. I also asked them to "straighten edges" when they converted the templates to their cutter patterns (if you don't do this, they will cut EXACTLY the lines on your template, which is likely not what you want).
The in-boat templates fit perfectly and the out-of-boat templates fit 99% (the carpets shrink a bit when they are not under tension while snapped down, so the pattern was just slightly off in a few places, but if I didn't point it out you probably wouldn't notice - but I do
).
Installing the snaps is a PITA, but I bought the "nicer" snap tool and it worked just fine.
I chose Duraweave 601. The binding is a dark chocolate that I don't have the number for, unfortunately. The total came to $1232 shipped.
The end result is AWESOME. I could not be happier with the Matworks products and the process was about as smooth as I could expect. Their customer support person (Hi Andrea!) was incredibly responsive and helpful, too.
Two thumbs up. Would recommend!
- Mark
While Matworks has a bunch of templates on hand, the A25 wasn't one of them. The templating process with a roll of 4 mil plastic sheeting and a Sharpie was not as bad as I expected. I ended up doing part of it in the boat (recommended) and the more complicated pieces (ie the weird one around the captain's chair) out of the boat by tracing the existing carpet piece. I also asked them to "straighten edges" when they converted the templates to their cutter patterns (if you don't do this, they will cut EXACTLY the lines on your template, which is likely not what you want).
The in-boat templates fit perfectly and the out-of-boat templates fit 99% (the carpets shrink a bit when they are not under tension while snapped down, so the pattern was just slightly off in a few places, but if I didn't point it out you probably wouldn't notice - but I do
).Installing the snaps is a PITA, but I bought the "nicer" snap tool and it worked just fine.
I chose Duraweave 601. The binding is a dark chocolate that I don't have the number for, unfortunately. The total came to $1232 shipped.
The end result is AWESOME. I could not be happier with the Matworks products and the process was about as smooth as I could expect. Their customer support person (Hi Andrea!) was incredibly responsive and helpful, too.
Two thumbs up. Would recommend!
- Mark