C-Forum

You people are the only ones on the planet, including my family, who will actually listen to me yammer away about canoe repairs.

Today we went after the Yellow Submarine, formerly, before she was such a wreck, known as Buttercup. She is actually a Rival.

She has many repairs already, including new oak gunwales, a big patch on the inside stern, kevlar patch on outside stern, the entire center floor has a kevlar patch.

First, I set the ABS to melting in the MEK.


She has a big new crack running right down the keelline from about a foot in front of the saddle down and under the saddle. The crack turned to be about 18 inches long. We pulled the saddle, sanded everything anf beveled out the big crack. We also discovered another 6 or so small cracks under the saddle. It is clear that these are from rolling and hanging upside down which I have done maybe 9,000 times in this boat.


We then cleaned the crap all out and put a long 2x4 on the saw horses on its thin edge. We set the boat on top of the 2x4 and used big clamps to open the crack. We cleaned the crack with a wet cloth to get a bit of water into the crack. We rolled a bead of Gorilla Glue into the crack and into all the little cracks and worked it in. We then removed the clamps and the 2x4 and put a thwart above the crack and put some sticks under the thwart and pushed the hull down to tighten the crack. The GG is now beading out nicely.

Tommowow we will sand down the GG and put in another kevlar patch on the inside, running patches over the big crack and several ribs across the boat and a cover the entire area with kevlar and then glass. Finally we will replace the saddle and coat the outside of the hull with the melted ABs, taking everyone's advice about many light coats.

The boat will then weigh 835 pounds but I don't care. It is my fav boat ever and I can carry it into the Chatoogga anytime.

I also moved the thigh strap attachment points foreward in the C-1 and put in some minicell on the inside of my thighs. It is actually a Dagger Outlaw enjoying reincarnation as a real boat.

Oh, what a busy day.

I'lll keep you all posted on the results.

Chris Kelly

Thought of you when I saw an ad for a Royalite Rival recently.

Kevlar inside is a good bet, especially if you do something to protect it from water infiltration. I wasn't clear about whether you were using epoxy, or layering in ABS.

While I have seen plenty of good reports for applying ABS is thin layers, when one is infiltrating Kevlar or glass, a question arises as to shrinkage during drying, and whether those multiple layers are providing the best resin matrix for the cloth.

Don't blow yourself up in the work shed.

it is better to not wear a mask because the kevlar particles in your lungs can soak up the MEK fumes. I been doing it a long time and look at me!