What is the best way to carpet an enclosure?
Should I use some kind of adhesive?

 

I've used both 3M Super77 spray adhesive and a staple gun.

 

The best glue I ever used was a spray can called "Big Stick" by Castle. That stuff stuck so well, you better not screw up, because it ain't coming back up. Unfortunately, I can't find that stuff anymore. Now I use the 3M stuff that's available at Wal Mart. That may be the 77 that Justin mentioned... I don't remember. In any case, that stuff holds pretty well as long as you give it sufficient time to tack up before trying to put the surfaces together.

Like everything else in this world, carpeting takes time and practice to get right. What really takes time is getting it smooth with no bunching or gathering over oddly shaped corners. When going around a corner, I generally try to stretch it over the center of the corner first, then work my way toward the straight panels. This technique works well for flush mount panels, or other cases where you're just carpeting a flat board.

For boxes or items deeper than the thickness of the wood, I typically use 1 piece of carpet and wrap it around the item, leaving enough hanging off the edges to fold over and meet at the center of the edge piece.

What's most important is making sure that you don't have any seams or edges on the side(s) of the box that will be most visible. Put the seams & edges on the sides, and bottom.

The technique for getting nice seams and edges is the hardest part. One technique that I use when wrapping the box is to overlap the two seams on the bottom a little bit. Take a straight edge, and make 1 cut that goes through both layers. Now pull off the "extra" of each layer, and you're left with 2 seams that should fit perfectly. Because carpet stretches a little bit, you will still have to work it together, but after you practice you can make the seam almost disappear. I use the same technique of overlapping then cutting on the box sides. I cut from each corner to one point in the center. The result is that you have four "triangular" pieces that all meet in the center of the side.

Practice, practice, practice. If you think carpet is hard, wait until you try to do vinyl without bumps or gathering.

 

Thanks for the advice!
This is my first attempt at doing ANYTHING like this.
If it turns out half-respectable I'll post pics . . .

 

on all the boxes i have made when putting the carpet on i have used some hot glue which i think works really well and is cheap too

 

i use a fairly heavy carpet for all the boxes i build, and my method is just to staple carpet on the longest side of the bottom of the box, then pull, and staple to the other long side of the bottom, going around the entire box. Then pull the remaining corners out, and staple as you go.

i use an air stapler, i havent had an unhappy customer yet. turns out great on 5 sides.

hot glue? lol, what are you gluing carpet to?

adam

 

glueing it to the wood

 

I'd hate to see what happens on a hot day when the glue melts.

 

Yeah, that's a good point since my car is a vert and the carpet will be exposed a little.

 

well i'll let uguys know gow it hold out as soon as the car is back together and the box is back in

 

assuming it holds anyway.

 

Yea i use the good 3m general trim adhesive and then staple i just finished mine and it looks perd\fect. People keep askign me who did the system work becasue it loosk so clean. THey also keep askign me if i know i'm white. hmm