The reason I say get the contact cement is its an INSTANT stick. with the outdoor carpet adhesive sold in the flooring department you have to wait for it to set up. Its fine for if you are doing a porch or something. But when you are doing carpet on a boat and covering edges you want it INSTANT. Plus the contact cement sticks to anything! all you have to do is take some cheap paint brushes, and apply it to the item you are carpeting and the back of the carpet. let it tack up (5 mins) then place the item onto the carpet (
not the carpet onto the item!). Once its down, there is no moving it. The contact cement helps prevent wrinkles. In my WHOLE boat, i dont have a SINGLE wrinkle. Not to sound egotistical, but my method is the BEST that I have seen.
1) lay carpet upside down on really flat surface like garage floor or something.
2) place items onto carpet and trace around them leaving enough room to be able to lap the carpet over the sides of the items a good inch or so.
3) cut out the carpet pieces.
4) leave them face down (plushside down)
5) Take contact cement and cheap paint brush and cover the back of the carpet with a thin layer. stay about 1 1/2" off the edges of the carpet. Then take the contact cement and paint it on the side of the item to be carpeted. let the contact cement tack up.
6) Place ITEM ONTO CARPET (not carpet to item). It usually takes two to do this so that you can hold the item above the carpet backing until you about have it in place then set it down onto the carpet. remember, once you set it down on the contact cement, its there to STAY. now walk on it to help prevent wrinkles. now its time to take care of the edges of the carpet.
7)remember in step 5 you stayed off the edges of the carpet about 1 1/2" when applying cement? Now here us where you fix that. at each corner of the item, you will have to miter the corners so that it can overlap good.
8) apply contact cement to the remaining carpet and the backside of the item (where the carpet is to lap over the edge) let the cement tack
9) lap the edge of the carpet over and mash really good. wallah, you have carpeted your item. it should look like this when done:
nice and smooth
