Sounds like an interesting project. Lots of fabrication.

Since you are in Florida, you might want to visit a shop on the coast that deals with tops on boats. There is a lot of standardized hardware for boats that could possibly be used to fab a folding top. Also, they would have the resources to actually sew the top.

The top on the repro Healey that I'm working on was made from boat hardware.

Good luck.

Looks like Jerry beat me to the keyboard!