Canoe Makeover

[Duffman]

My girl needed some TLC and a coat of epoxy.

Like working with some nice Italian leather.

 

 

[Wanderer]

Sweet job there!

[eyeguy 54]

nice, I wonder how epoxy would be on the bottom of my yak to smooth it up a bit. 

[delcecchi]

10 hours ago, eyeguy 54 said:

nice, I wonder how epoxy would be on the bottom of my yak to smooth it up a bit. 

 

Aren't most yaks made of some sort of Polyethylene?   Would epoxy stick to that.   Souris River on the other hand uses epoxy to make the canoe if I recall correctly.   

[Duffman]

1 hour ago, delcecchi said:

 Souris River on the other hand uses epoxy to make the canoe if I recall correctly.   

 

Yes, the SR's are epoxy based, they also put a layer of fiberglass on the outside of the Kevlar for refinishing purposes.

Kevlar doesn't take kindly to being sanded I guess.

 

It was a pain trying to get skid plates to stick and stay stuck to my plastic Old Town canoe. Probably the same problem with plastic Yaks........finding something that would adhere.

 

I also tried something new (to me) with the black skid plates, seen online where a guy used Rust-oleum leak seal rubberized spray. That was six years ago, and he recently replied to me that it was holding up pretty good. So I gave it a go. 

 

Couple thin coats, we'll see how they hold up to my use. I can always reapply if needed.

 

 

 

[delcecchi]

Interesting idea for the skid plate.   I would be interested in your experience with them, and especially whether they slide or grab when hitting a rock.   Buddy and I have a le tigre 17 quetico if I recall the model correctly.  So the skid plate is of interest.  

[nofishfisherman]

I saw the post on that other site and thought the rust oleum idea was a good one.  I was also curious whether the skid plates are going to in fact skid over rocks or grab on to them more.  If they do grab the rocks I wonder if you could epoxy over them to give them more skid.

[Duffman]

It's cured to a hard rubber, but yea, I think it's going to grab rocks more.

 

And I contemplated putting epoxy over the rubber, there are some spots where I got a little on the rubber, going to see how it behaves this year.

Both the rubber spray and epoxy are flexible, so they might be compatible.

 

I also got some bubbles and unevenness in the epoxy.

 

But now that I'm more comfortable working with the materials, I might give it another go next spring.

 

[Lamont Cyrus]

you have a beautiful boat. worked hard! well done