C-Forum

Anyone ever have a problem with delaminating due to contact cement? Specifically with the area under or around the knee blocks?

Scott

Scott what's delaminating? The minicell? From plastic or glass? Sorry! Just looking to help out! Paul C.

Sorry. The Royalex is delaminating on the chine. There is a spot the size of your hand where it is super soft and you can feel it has separated from the foam core. It is on my Ocoee so it is a sensitive area to start but, I could not see it just being wear.

I've seen it on lots of boats, old designs and new, perhaps more so on hard-chined hulls, but I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with contact cement.

Others will correct me if I'm wrong, but this is more often a problem associated with vinyl-to-vinyl adhesives for anchor bases - and shouldn't be as long as you followed the directions and allowed sufficient drying time before contact.

It's probably just wear and flex issues on that part of your hull. No gouges or cracks nearby where water may be seeping in?

Personally, I think it's also a bit of crap shoot too - some batches of Royalex just seem to hold up better than others without much rhyme or reason to the outfitting or the use & abuse.

P.

No gouges or cracks but the vinyl is worn off. that is to be expected. My thoughts were that the chine would get soft and get rubbed off but not separate internally. There has been talk that there was too much contact cement used. This was the first I had heard of it and was just wondering if anyone else has seen this before.

There have been multiple reports on this board of the solvent in Vynabond softening a hull made of an ABS/vinyl sandwich. When forces are applied to such softened hulls, the strata delaminate.

Best to let all solvents evaporate completely before joining parts when gluing. Read the directions on the adhesive container label.

I had a yellow Ocoee that did this on my right (on-side) chine. I don't think it had anything to do with contact cement or vynabond, because all of the d-rings & knee pads (left & right) were attached identically. The left side was just fine. Rather, I believe that after hundreds of boulder hits on this chine, the inner ABS layer finally seperated from the foam core. This is probably an inherent trait of all hard-chined Royalex canoes. However, I've heard that the yellow Ocoees were particularly bad about this. I've been paddling a purple one for a couple of years now, and so far have had no problems.

Terry

Things have worked themselves out. While there was no admition to the reason for the delam we reached an agreement and my new boat is on its way.

Was this a new Bell Ocoee???