The skin for the top of the kayak is a nylon backed vinyl. It is readily available in most cloth stores. You may remember it as the material your folks used to recover the kitchen chairs back in the 50s. It stretches well, is strong, and comes in a fair variety of colors. It will clean up nicely with soap and water and if you put a "little" Armour-all on it, it will look nice.
You need the boat to stay still, especially if you work alone as I often do.
Take two horses, place them a few feet apart, and staple some of the scrap from the hull fabric to them to make a cloth cradle. Make two cradles. The cradles should be wide enough so that the boat will snuggle down in the fabric and be secure. Don't make the strips so long that it becomes a swing for the boat. Several strips on each pair will hold the boat well enough that it will not be rocking back and forth as you try to pull the top fabric tight. There is no way to shrink the vinyl as you did the cotton duck so you have to work out the pulls as you go.
You may also make cradles by cutting "U"s in cardboard boxes, but I can never find boxes when I need them.
Using a helper if possible fold the vinyl in half, lengthwise, as you did the cotton duck and place it on the top of the boat so it is centered when you flip it open. Be sure there is enough material on both sides.
Begin by driving a few staples at the stern end to hold it in place. Place the staples as near the end as you can. You will be able to hide then with the "rub strip" if you stay close to the end.
Go to the bow end of the hull and pull the fabric tight, just as you did with the hull material. Do it firmly, but don't stretch it too far. The vinyl is a lot easier to stretch then the cotton duck, but it tears a lot more readily as well.
Start at the side at about center of the boat. Do a few staples on one side and then do the other side, working your way toward the ends, just as you did with the duck on the bottom hull.
Make the vinyl taught but don't get overboard as you will be tightening it a lot when you pull the vinyl down into the cockpit to staple it there.
When you have completed the entire job all the way around the edges do the best you can to hammer in the staples. You wont get them all in readily just yet, because you can't get the dolly into the inside of the boat, but do the best you can.
Take your staple gun, invert it, and place it on the vinyl, about two inches from the edge of the coaming on the inside of where you will eventually cut out the hole to sit in.
Push down and draw the gun toward you in one motion, until you feel the board around the inside of the hole. Do it carefully as the gun can have sharp edges and might rip the vinyl. You now have the outer edge against you and the gun on the inside of the boat. Drive a staple in. Repeat this procedure all away around the inner side of the hole. Drive the staples 3 or so inches apart at the beginning. After you have secured the vinyl all around the hole you can see the outline well where you will eventually be sitting.
Now go back to the first staple and begin to fill in the spaces between staples. Just keep going around till you have it well secured.
The 90 degrees corners at the rear of the cockpit are going to be a bit harder to do. Don't force them. if you think the vinyl may tear from being stretched too far, stop trying. This will be taken care of after.
You now should have the entire top covered with a depression in the hole about an inch or so deep. Take you razor knife and cut out the material in the depression. Leave lots of material at first. Just cut it enough so that it will drop down and become a flap. Leave as much in material as you can in the tight corners. If you cut too close to the edge, the vinyl will rip where the tight corner is. You will be covering all these staples with an inside wooden trim anyway so let it sit for now.
Once you are satisfied that the vinyl is ok and stapled well enough, then you can neatly trim off the excess, and using the hammer and dolly, drive all the stapled tight.
The Top is now complete.
