Here are the materials:
One piece of signmaker's material sintra or trovicel for the awning
itself. It can be any number of things you might find at a builder's
supply store, but it needs to be rigid and tough.
One strip of dywall edging. At least I think that's what it is,
and I found it the bin at Home Depot that contains the metal edging
that you put on drywall corners, and it was in the drywall section.
It's used to hook the awning into the rain gutter, you can see its
profile in one of the photos below.
A piece of 3/16 dowel about 14 inches long, but could be longer.
It serves at the strut that holds up the awning. I would rather
have used an aluminum tube or section of a fishing rod, but there
is a critical design feature that is easy to whittle into the wood
and tougher to make in aluminum or fiberglass--it's a notch that
goes around the circumference of the upper end of the strut, about
1/2 inch from the end. It catches the plastic awning and presents
it from sliding down the strut. The outward pressure from the bent
spring on the base keeps the carved groove in contact with the hole
drilled into the awning material to receive it. This is a surprisingly
dependable arrangement, but like all awning designs, there's going
to be some level of wind it can't tolerate.
A Stanley Spring Doorstop #81-9050 SP7092 also from Home Depot.
These are the things you put on your hoe's baseboard to keep your
doors from hitting the wall. They come two to a pack for $2.39 around
here. Take off the rubber tip and use it to replace the missing
one in your house : ). Note that this gadget come in two pieces,
a base and the spring itself. The base mounts with a single screw
and once it's attached, the spring threads into a hole in the base
to keep it secure.
Magnet from harborfreight.com. It's actually a Magnetic Ground Block
ITEM 30754-0VGA $7.99 on the website, but I bought several of these
magnets for half that in the store when they were on sale. Remove
the brass part and spring when you get it, you won't need that.
The magnet conveniently has a recess in the top side that exactly
fits the base of the door stopper. You'll need one or more washers
to close the big hole in the magnet down to capture the head of
the #8 screw and nut you will use to attache the doorstop base to
the magnet.
Once you have the spring base fastened to the magnet, it's time
to cover the base of the magnet with cloth or felt. I used a scrap
of headliner, and left a tag sticking out I could grab and lift
by. This magnet is very strong. If you don't use the cloth, you
almost can't get it off and will surely scratch your paint. I use
another one of these magnets to attach a 12v fan to my dash (an
older diesel westy without a heavy plastic dash cover).
That's it, besides the silicon glue or whatever you're going to
use to glue the top catch strip to the plastic. The dowel is just
stuck down into the small end of the spring, it's a snug fit.
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Here's the installation in place. It literally takes less
than ten seconds to set up or take down. Plant the magnetic
base, hang the awning, hook the awning on the dowel. I keep
my awning in the closet till I'm about to use it then it
goes behind the front seat. The magnet and dowel are stored
as a unit on the one little angled, inward-facing area on
the drivers seat pedestal. the magnet sticks to the metal
through the carpet, the dowel sort of points toward the
passenger. You'd think this would be obtrusive but it isn't.
You'll know what I mean when you look at the front of your
seat pedestal.
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This shows the profile
of the drywall edging.
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Dowel with groove, and how the awning catches the groove.
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Magnetic base in place.
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