Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I just had a new custom mooring cover made for my boat and I asked the lady to add an extra flap of fabric to cover all the snaps along both sides. This keeps the rain from dripping off the snaps and causing black streaks under each snap. I first saw this on a Tahoe cover and thought it was a great idea. Some manufacturers are now using painted snaps to eliminate the streaks.

She did a fantastic job on the cover. The cost was $800 for the cover and an extra $60 for the extra flap. This lady lives about 5 miles from me and she came to my house to get measurements, made the cover at her shop, came back and fitted the cover and added snaps where needed. I never had to move the boat. Great service.

Here's the fold I was talking about:

Wow, that's an awesome price for a custom-fit cover (I'll have to wait till I get home to see the pic -- they block images on websites at my work). I was quoted $2K from a local company to make a custom-fit cover for my boat.

great tip, thanks.

If you use stainless steel snaps, you should never have that problem in the first place.

babock wrote:If you use stainless steel snaps, you should never have that problem in the first place.

It's a very common problem so either a lot of boat cover manufacturers don't use stainless steel snaps or stainless steel snaps cause black streaks. I don't know which it is.

The snaps on my original Bennington cover never corroded, so they must have been stainless steel or had some type of plating. But I had black streaks regularly. I scrubbed them so many times I wore through the paint. That's the main reason I had my boat wrapped with vinyl.

Do you have a pic of your boat wrapped?

sunedog wrote:

babock wrote:If you use stainless steel snaps, you should never have that problem in the first place.

It's a very common problem so either a lot of boat cover manufacturers don't use stainless steel snaps or stainless steel snaps cause black streaks. I don't know which it is.

The snaps on my original Bennington cover never corroded, so they must have been stainless steel or had some type of plating. But I had black streaks regularly. I scrubbed them so many times I wore through the paint. That's the main reason I had my boat wrapped with vinyl.

Most manufacturers use chrome plated snap that are brass with a stainless screw. If you switch them out to 100 percent stainless, you won't get the streaks. When I rebuilt my old Starcraft, I removed everything chrome plated brass and never had any issues after.

^^^ Yep. It's the brass that does it. Even MOST of the ss snaps have a brass core. Look under yours, you can usually see the brass when the rivet mushrooms out.

BTW that's an awesome idea.

ToonGuy wrote:^^^ Yep. It's the brass that does it. Even MOST of the ss snaps have a brass core. Look under yours, you can usually see the brass when the rivet mushrooms out.

Nope...SS snaps are all stainless, at least the ones I buy. That's why they are so hard to install compared to the brass nickel plated ones.

cwag911 wrote:Do you have a pic of your boat wrapped?

I think I've posted a pic of it before, but here are two newer ones.





And look closely at this one. One of my favorite things -- my friend who designed the wrap "ghosted" the lyrics to "Take Me Home Country Roads" in 2" letters into the background of the mountain ridges. You have to be within about 10 feet of the boat to see them.

NICE !!

babock wrote:

ToonGuy wrote:^^^ Yep. It's the brass that does it. Even MOST of the ss snaps have a brass core. Look under yours, you can usually see the brass when the rivet mushrooms out.

Nope...SS snaps are all stainless, at least the ones I buy. That's why they are so hard to install compared to the brass nickel plated ones.

That's why it says MOST. Around here if you don't specify you get a SS or nickel cover over a brass snap. I don't claim they aren't available in all SS, just buyer beware...

That wrap is awesome! I don't wanna be nosey, but how much does something like that cost? My Premier looks boring and I want to livin it up abit!
Excellent idea on the flap! Premier uses the plastic J clips, so you never get the black streaks on the panels.

Bryden24shp wrote:That wrap is awesome! I don't wanna be nosey, but how much does something like that cost? My Premier looks boring and I want to livin it up abit!

Probably $1500 on the low end up to about $3000. That would include design, stripping the old graphics off (took 2 days on mine), and installation of the wrap. A friend did mine so I didn't pay that. You will pay more for an all out custom design like mine.

Graphics companies wrap everything these days. You can probably find one in most cities that do commercial vehicles. My guy wraps Nationwide and Truck Series race cars, motorcycles, golf carts, PWC's, and a lot of commercial vehicles.

I will tell everyone -- I love the wrap and it is reasonably tough. But it will cut easily. It is just a giant high quality vinyl bumper sticker. I have a few cuts on it that I have no idea how I got. And a few that I know how I got. But it is not as resiliant as the factory paint.