The question has come up as to exactly how canvas roofs were made in the old days. The impression I've always gotten from old texts is that canvas was so common that its installation was considered simple and obvious, something anybody would know how to do. So I looked through my limited library a little more.
The best reference on car construction I've got is by Kirkman, about 600 pages of information. It deals with steam-road freight and passenger cars, but I believe the basic construction techniques would be the same for electric cars. However, he says nothing about actually attaching the canvas. When it's in place, paint it with heavy white lead. Thanks.
And as another sample, here's part of a page from Norris' book on Electric Railways, dated 1911/1913. He mentions that the roof structure should be painted, and then: "Over this is stretched heavy cotton duck which is heavily painted."
So that doesn't tell us exactly how the canvas was stretched, or whether it had to be washed first, and so on. I just don't know. Meanwhile, I suppose we'll keep doing what we're doing -- it seems to work well in our situation. But if anybody can find more details on installing canvas roofs from a century ago, I'd be glad to hear about it.
2 comments:
Thanks for doing the extra research! My questions were in the same direction as C. Kronenwetter. This process takes time and indoor track space, so even with daily efforts of many people, I'd be interested to know how much faster the process can be done.
T. Rich
Regarding whether it had to be washed first in the past- I suspect that unsized duck was available for things that were to be painted to waterproof them, like car roofs. But now, we take what we can get, for the most part.
R. W. Schauer
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