Made my hard top bikini, anyone use snap buttons

[bugspray]

Here in Az, the heat will kill you, and the kids. The ac isn't quite cold enough /forums/images/graemlins/rotfl.gif . I wanted a bikini top, that wouldn't rip on the trails, and to lose the weight of my top. I had the idea of cutting a top and custom making something. I came across a guy that was getting rid of his, so I grabbed it. It took me a while to get the time to make it, but it's done.
bikini top

I want something lightweight for the sides and rear for the rain (monsoons) and the cold drives during the winter. I was originally thinking of making some slide out plexiglass windows (I want to remove it when we hit the trails), but it looks like the roll bar is going to be in the way.

Now I'm looking at making soft sides. I have seen the snap buttons through JC Whitney. Anyone use these?.
JC Whitney snaps

Any other suggestions? I would rather try it myself than take it somewhere. Ever since being on this website, I try to follow "Built, not bought." How addicting. I hope all of the links etc work.

 

[mrk5]

I've never used the snaps you were talking about.

But, you know what might make it easier would be to find a factory soft top that you could cut up. Then you could use the rails with snaps. All it would take is to attach the soft top to the fiberglass top.

Course I suppose a soft top that is scrapped probably has ripped up sides.

 

[Cmoe]

YEh I've used that style of snaps. they work OK, but you can buy a hand style that you use a grip (like vise grips) that work a lot better.

 

[bugspray]

Where can I get those, or what are they called? Do the snaps from JC Whitney hold good?

 

[dremu]

You can get the snaps like that lots of places... Home Despot has them, as does the local fabric store. I found the fabric store had a better selection of sizes, a center punch to install them, refills, etc.

-- A

 

[Cmoe]

I buy them at Tempe Sales. Never baught them from JC Whitney.

 

[Nonesuch]

A friend of mine has done this. I wish I had the links to his post or knew his username but you may be able to find it with a search on soft top.

 

[bugspray]

Thanks for the info. All the searches I did returned about soft tops. Yeah, if anyone's done/ made anything like this I'd love to see pic's. I saw the one where there was a sort of moon roof made, but different deal altogether.