@wrkinprogress posted:Yesterday I ordered a custom tonneau to address these issues. Please see https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/3bSdA3 for the outline of my bespoke tonneau cover.
wait, I want to know about that giant Speedster photo behind your car in those pics. Where’d you source that?! I want one!
@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:wait, I want to know about that giant Speedster photo behind your car in those pics. Where’d you source that?! I want one!
@wrkinprogress posted:@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi Was the starting point for your project one of those crescent-moon-shaped things, or a true half-tonneau like the one on the silver speedster in the Rare Air topic photos (https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVUvSDS ) . I've never seen one of those for sale, but it was not a solution for my cover/seatback dimensions problem anyway.
Other points of interest from discussion with the car interiors guy: Stayfast full tonneau about $100 more than vinyl just for the material. Sonnendeck and other German canvas completely absurd in price. Canvases are somewhat limited in color selection, especially in white, where the closest is sort of an oatmeal grey. I ordered vinyl, for price, for the bright white, and for the ease of keeping vinyl clean.
My car had two tonneau's. I cut the half tonneau. What I wanted was a top boot like the convertibles have. The half tonneau catches wind. It flaps and pulls at the corner fasteners; the ones with the turn latch near the rear of the doors.
Hartz canvas is similar to Stayfast, Canvas is the conventional material used on European and classic car tops and covers. It is an indication of quality like leather. The extra $100 is worth paying.
@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal Neither the car nor the tapestry is remotely mine, sadly. See the Rare Air topic on SOC a weekend ago for the context of that photo.
You can google and find services that will take a decently hi resolution photo and blow it up printed on fabric to the feet by feet size of the one you saw in my photo. At more reasonable prices, Staples and other shops have good color printers with a 52 inch platen, so they can print to order 52 inches by as long as you want. If you have them do a big one, make sure they have enough hands and table-space to lay it flat and face up for a couple minutes just off the printer. Especially if they are printing on their heavier stock, it will want to curl up and smear itself.
@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi I respect your recommendation regarding the desirability of canvas over vinyl, and I know it's widely shared. Including by me, in general. I like the feel and the classy matte appearance of canvas.
I fell into the white tonneau, tho, and now I like the distinctive look. I've been to two speedster events since I've had the car, Carlisle and the Rare Air museum exhibit, and at each of those there was someone else's silver speedster with a black tonneau. I thought about light grey to match the carpeting, but I was worried that a silver speedster with a grey tonneau would look like a very small naval vessel. So white it is. Bonus: I have until September to waffle before the shop orders the fabric .
Thanks again for your comments. I look forward to your future projects.
@ryan in
Just about any place that does signs has a wide-format printer these days to do larger signs and wraps, too. Most of those systems can take a hi-res photo (6MP or larger) and print it onto different materials.
The tough part might be finding a photo with that kind of resolution to remain decent looking when blown up to something the size of a bedspread. You might need something between 12MP and 25MP (unless they have some smoothing software to up-convert a lower res).
When I was doing graphic art as a job, one of my first questions was "Do you have artwork". Come to find out, their definition of artwork was a matchbook cover. These were the ones that usually didn't want to pay for art, so sh*t in sh*t out.
There are filters that can make a lower res photo look decent when enlarged. It won't be crisp, but from five foot or more away, it still looks good. In some instances, it looks better than a crisp image.
Thanks for all the help! Nearly all of my photos are taken on my iPhone (~12MP), so I think I’m good. Not to mention the Apple billboards often say “Shot on iPhone”. So far my largest prints have been 40x30” on Costco canvas. Looks like there’s room to go bigger!
