This question has been asked many times and I’ve searched the threads and end up confused. I just bought a Mad River Malecite kevlar canoe that needs a lot of love. The gunnels and decks are gone so I’ll be replacing those. The hull looks good and doesn’t appear to have any serious issues. The main thing is spider webbing and a few scratches. One or two dings or divots.
My question is, once I’ve wet sanded and cleaned the hull would rolling on West epoxy be adequate without deeper patching?
I’ve never worked on kevlar but I’ve built two CLC kayaks so I’ve worked with West epoxy. I’m hoping not to paint the hull.
Although I haven’t used it myself many people swear by Capt Tolley’s for repair of spiderweb cracks. It’s designed to penetrate and seal very fine cracks. It dries clear. This can be done before rolling on West Epoxy.
To get a smoother finish some people prefer to spray on the epoxy to reduce sanding if appearance is critical to you. But, it’s just a boat, not a fine piece of furniture.
Keep in mind that kevlar gets fuzzy if you sand into it.
A lot of different products could be used in the spider cracks. Just be careful and paint over it. The hull looks pretty good already.
Since you’ve built a couple of boats, you know that epoxy must be varnished or painted to protect it from UV. The epoxy will degrade if you don’t and repairing that will be way more work than painting over initially will be.
Give a thought to using an epoxy based paint. Priming the boat will seal all the hairline cracks and any micro perforations and there are infinite choices of paint color. Primer and paint should cost about $250.
