Does anyone here have any experience with making a new hood? I want to use acrylic canvas, but don't know if it's elastic at all, will it stretch when closing and remain taut? If I should glue it or sew it, and what kind of glue to use etc. The rest seems not too complicated. I am too skimpy to but one of Matt's hoods and unconvinced that the shitty plastic ones are actually worth 200 euros
Would love a white one on my car, but will probably go with a more sensible gray colour...

thats what i use its perfect strangely it goes tight in the sun and looser when wet the opposuite of the Vinyl stuff

glue using polyurethane or a good contact adhesive i gave mine a 75mm overlap at the sides - i dont like the narrow stripe down the middle of some either silicone or talc the bungee to stop it sticking to the channel. Centre clips use brass crush rivets difficulty comes finding a good front bar and a strong window aperature

just un pick the old roof and use it as a template if the old one is really tight add 10mm each side and 20 to the length as it doesn't have the same stretch

once you have assembled all the bits and wrestled the family out the living room to get space and the flack for getting glue on the carpet etc etc Matts kind of makes sense

Done! Despite the very sound advice I managed to only add length and make it the same width as the old one... Works, but it could have been better. I chose to first glue almost the whole length of the edge/channel, would have done it closer to the original the next time around, the bungee cord would have been completely hidden. Oh well. I think it looks nice anyway. Today I drove it and left it in the rain for several hours and fortunately, no leaks (at least not from the hood, just the usual).
Following a polish 2cv friends advice, I glued a thick and soft fabric to make it quieter (he once used a blanket for this I used car ceiling upholstery on thin foam), and it really makes a difference. Today I didn't hear the usual rain or wind against the hood, I feel like there is also less reflected cabin/engine noise (normally the car was the quietest with roof down/ all windows & flap closed, at least up to 70 kph). Both glued surfaces were nearly 3 square meters and I got quite high on the glue before I realised I needed to open more windows...
Also sandblasted and powder coated all the metal parts, all in rather good condition (this wasn't an old original hood).

looks good!

( +10mm on each side for anyone else having a go )

Well done - looks good

Nice! I'll be making one of these this year or next year or maybe in three years. Thanks for the tip.

I've been planning this for about a year having seen how cheap the material cost is and the quality compared to the standard PVC/Vinyl roofs. Great a must save to file and a brilliant job and write up..

I see you have put some sort of band around the rear window,I had thought about using some of the very large zip ties you can get for this job

Shall I sticky this? Seems a handy thread to have.

Yes Sticky it.

If so, I'll make a drawing with all necessary corrections to dimensions, folding places. etc., so that you can make yours as good as I wish I'd done mine.
@banjo: Don't know what band you're talking about, I only have the parts which came with my roof: a metal frame which the canvas' edge wraps around under the seal, and a rubber seal with a wedge.
Normally, you'd assemble the glass with the seal and wedge to put it in the frame like any other 2cv window, but here you have to fold the fabric around the frame first. The seal is cut (not a "loop"), I wrapped it around the frame with the hood mounted on my 2CV to position the window. Then I pressed in the glass, then removed the whole thing and carefully put the wedge in using a thin, smooth, dull and rounded blade to fold the seal out on the wedge itself (and the perfect tool was a flat screwdriver on a swiss army knife ).