Gluing Foam into a Prelude

[milkman]

So what's the best adhesive to use to glue foam knee pads into a Prelude? If it was an ABS canoe I'd use Contact Cement. But this is a whole different animal.

If you suggest an adhesive, please provide any special gluing instructions if necessary.

[ckingoc1]

Weldwood contact cement in the RED can,is what I used in my fly and I installed them the same way as my roalex boats

[Marc Evans]

Milkman, I second the Weldwood in the red can. Used it to glue in the bulk head system on my fly - same material as the Prelude. However, I used two strips of adhesive backed 2" wide industrial strength velcro for putting in the knee pads. You can easily remove them and make quick changes. If you go from warm weather wearing shorts to a cold weather wearing fleece and a dry suit you can put in a thinner set of knee pads and still fit the bulk head system. I haven't tried it, but you can even put the bulk head system in with the velcro. I seem to recall reading that cbcboat has done that with some of his conversions.

Marc

[c1swim]

All my velcro kneepads have been lost in river-wide yardsales.
But, foam is cheap.

[Plumbpass]

3M high strength #90 spray adhesive. I just put my saddle back in my Prelude with it last week and it worked very well.

[kanur]

Any high quality contact cement will work. Scuff the foam and the area of the hull where you are putting the foam with dragon skin and apply at least 3 good coats of cement letting each one dry completly and firmly press the foam in place. Hopefully you have it where it needs to be because it is going to be stuck there.

[milkman]

I think I'll go with the contact cement since I already have that and I try to keep a lean inventory on unhealthy adhesives in the garage.

Thanks for the application instructions. This is a whole new kind of plastic for me. (I've never owned or paddled a kayak.)

[philcanoe]

it's just plastic...

* clean well... really do not need to scuff up (will not hurt), a little alcohol will do AOK
* use any petroleum based contact cement... if can says flammable you've got the right stuff (as opposed to water based - go figure)
* simply coat hull side once... and foam twice (allowing to dry to touch between)... no need for more
* wait till dry to touch/no longer sticky
* you can line up parts with a piece of wax paper (silicon paper better) between, and slide it out when aligned... press/jump on/push hard/whatever

good to go (not rocket science)

if you get messy with - do not attempt to remove while wet - simply remove after cured - much easier and effective... your goal is not trying to make parts stick 4ever (4ever-hallelujah)... just stay together until you want to replace, redo, or upgrade... a good reason not to scuff up a perfectly good hull... or maybe for instance, you break a footbrace, - darn near impossible to get tools on or to slide out of saddle to fix

[oopsiflipped]

I like the wax paper tip. What is silicon paper?

[philcanoe]

silicon paper is what I call that stuff you normally throw away, its on the backside of sticky stuff (most all peel and stick) and made to be thrown away - it's usually a brownish color and real slick, nothing seems to adhere to it, also makes excellent throw away when using resins... most likely if you see any lying around ask for it, it's just made to be thrown away... I got a lot from some stuff called crack isolation membrane, used by ceramic tile setters - it's a couple feet wide... to be honest - i'm just guessing it's silicon coated

[oopsiflipped]

dang, i've thrown a bunch of that away off of the thin self adhesive foam....never though to use it on tricky tight squeeze in glue jobs...

[craig]

Great tip,that silicon paper. Thanks Philcanoe !!