I have an older Malecite that I use for a lake boat mostly, some river work, but a lot of the lakes I’m on have some rocky landings and I’ve beat the V up pretty good. Also the sand from the rivers has taken its toll over the years. I have been mulling over running a 2" wide piece of cloth along the entire bottom to get a few more years out of this grand ol’ boat.
I’ve had a lot of luck with Dynel with some of my other boats making skid plates and they are rugged as hell. But I am considering the weight factor of using Dynel as it is a thicker cloth. I hate cutting S-Cloth but am considering using that instead.
Any thoughts from the more experienced folks out there?
dougd
Go with S 'glass
I have used both S fiberglass and Dynel extensively. Dynel is nice for abrasion plates or rub strips on high wear areas but S 'glass is stronger and soaks up less resin so it adds less weight for equal or greater strength.
If I was adding a layer to the entire bottom of a boat (which I have done several times) I would use S 'glass over Dynel.
Why do you hate cutting S 'glass? I find cutting 6 oz/yd S 'glass no harder than cutting E 'glass of comparable thickness, or Dynel.
I have most often used style 6533-60 6 oz/yd S 'glass from Sweet Composites and have been very happy with it. If you wanted to add less weight you might consider going with the style 6522-60 4oz/yd cloth instead: http://sweetcomposites.com/Fiberglass.html
I don’t know if you’ll save weight with
S-glass. It depends on the weight of the respective cloths and how many you slap on the hull. Even if the weight of S-glass or Dynel in the patches is about equal, Dynel will soak up more resin, but I don’t think the weight difference will be great.
My old copy of Boatbuilder’s Manual has a chart of various characteristics of boat cloths. Dynel is at the top for resisting frictional wear, but S-glass is only maybe 15% behind. No other cloths are very close.
If you aren’t sustaining the kinds of blows where S-glass would have the edge, it’s mainly a matter of what sort of wear you prefer. Dynel is kind of sneaky, as if the fibers were ducking under the frictioning surface. S-glass is just hard, very hard. It wears smooth and does not scratch easily.
2" along the keel?
What about all the gouges 6" beyond the keel line?