Hello, I’m planning on taking an old royalex Bell Yellowstone (15.3’) that was ‘bout ripped in half, cutting the middle 5.3’ out of it to create a 10’ long play boat.
Anyone every spliced two ends of an old canoe together to do such a thing?
Got any pointers?
I remember reading in Paul Mason’s “Thrill of the Paddle” that he did this to create his early play boats but I don’t have any details.
Haven’t seen my copy in years
of Paul’s book. My memory has it being done with epoxy & fabric - maybe Kevlar. Now days you might want to put s-glass on the outside & the Kevlar on the inside. I don’t think that he gave details on the process like stripping off the vinyl, etc. I also don’t think that he worried too much about durability. Good luck.
try cboats dot net
– Last Updated: Dec-04-15 11:18 PM EST –
Quite a few people there have chopped Royalex and polyethylene boats and can probably give you advice on how to go about it. The Yellowstone really does not have enough depth for a good whitewater playboat. It will likely be pretty wet.
Full body splice
Back in 76, Mad River built some 13’ solo slalom canoes by cutting 3’ out of royalex Explorers.
The story l heard in the late 70’s is that the splice was made with Kevlar and epoxy. The " finished" splice was some hard dull brown stuff that looked like epoxy putty .
I had use of well used one in the mid 80’s and the joint was sound .
play boat
It would be hard to increase the rocker enough, and make the two halves strong enough for rough water.