I am returning to my roots. I recently bought an older canoe that by description I hope is Royalex. There is a quarter size puncture in the bow not all the way through though I can see foam in the center. It is above the water line. What advice can any seasoned paddlers offer me for a long lasting inexpensive repair. Goop? Marine JB weld? sanding and a patch? I am ready to have some over due fun on the lake or slow moving local rivers. Thanks Jay
boat hole
Pictures would help with suggestions to repair…
Thank you for your response. Good idea. I got a photo up now of the small hole in the boat. I have seen some repair kits at Home Depot though I don’t want to waste time and money on something cheap or incorrect? Thanks again
First, you’ll need to clean the area around the hole, and inside the hole as well as you can get it. Looks like it got a duct tape repair, possibly a “field repair” the day it ran into whatever created that dent (re-bar in the river?). The leftover adhesive needs to come off, might try a solvent, like rubbing alcohol, mineral spirits, or acetone. I’d go with G-Flex epoxy to fill it (though the items you mention are probably serviceable). Then sand an area at least 2" around the hole, and apply a fiberglass or Kevlar patch, using G-Flex epoxy. Follow the directions on the G-Flex kit.
How does the inside surface of the canoe look, at that spot? You may not need to do anything with it.
Awesome! The inside of the canoe looks clean. No sign of puncture or cracks. I will follow your advice to a T. This will be my project for later this week. I will order the ingredients and thank you again later. The lettering has faded for the identifying badge. I will paint that back on too. Many thanks
What pklonowski said. A couple of tips:
Don’t use acetone on Royalex unless you’re sure it flashes off immediately. If it puddles it will eat a new hole into the hull. I’d try a milder solvent first, like alcohol or Goo-Gone to remove the duct tape residue.
When you clean out the whole, bevel all of the edges so they fade nicely into the intact part of the hull.
Also, if you find the viscosity of regular G/flex too runny to fill the hole without running down the sides, you can thicken G/flex with colloidal silica powder to a ketchup or mayonnaise consistency. For the actual patch, use non-thickened G/flex.
Sweet Composites or Express Composites will have all the supplies you need.
Here’s how I started with a worse problem where I also had to fill out missing material with G/flex and put patches on. This thread is a bit verbose. What you want to do is only a fraction of what I had to do:
pblanc here on this forum is a treasure chest of knowledge about these repairs and very helpful. I’d consider myself his humble internet apprentice. If you do a search, you’ll find much more detail and tips and tricks. This Google search
pblanc royalex silica patch
or similar will give you hours of reading.
Thanks, that is good to know too. I like the idea of having the correct tools and info to do a job right the first time. I will check out these sites. Thanks for the guidance.
Melenas is right… thanks for catching me! Not sure what I was thinking when I said acetone… My apologies!
I hadn’t thought about beveling these types of punctures… good thought, especially as it’ll give you clean surfaces to work with.