-- Last Updated: Aug-28-12 10:04 AM EST --
I have a 20-year-old ABS Royalex canoe, and the entire plastic hull has become sticky (tacky). Does anyone have a suggestion for cleaning or treating the ABS?
Try soap and water first
and escalate from there. You can try something mildly abrasive like Comet cleanser.
For the really stubborn sticky residue I have generally found that an organic solvent like acetone or methyethylketone is required. Either will melt your hull on prolonged contact though, and getting all the goo off is laborious. MEK fumes are also pretty toxic.
1 Like
How did it get that way?
Have you been treating it with something?
I have a +/-25 year-old OT that I’ve sporadically scrubbed with bleach and water and applied 303 to its outer hull twice a year for the past dozen. It lives under cover outdoors and has never gone through a sticky stage.
Some get sticky and grimy, some don’t
Even if they are stored side by side.
I have heard folks say that this is the result of some type of mold growing on the boat and that it can be removed with bleach, but I have not found that to be the case.
1 Like
Maybe plasticizers leaching
out of the vinyl?
It would bother me, too.
1 Like
Yeah
I think that is quite possible especially in view of the fact that organic solvents are typically needed to remove it.
It is not just that the surface becomes tacky. The stickiness attracts dirt and grime that really makes the boat unsightly.
Had this problem
After washing as best I could I found that car wax paste and some elbow grease cleaned it up nicely.
I think it’s grunge complicated by
little growing organisms. The surface is vinyl, and a non-aggressive vinyl cleaner should clean it effectively. Then I agree with the notion of using a wax, perhaps the 3M yacht wax I use, to preserve a clean surface.
Wierd -
learn something new everyday. I’ve never seen something like this. I have two trippers both more than 30 years old and I’ve never seen anything like you describe.
looks like new
I had good luck with undiluted Simple Green under a coarse cotton shop rag working small areas between beer and rest.
1 Like
Mad River says stickiness is due to fungus. That’s BS- it’s plasticizer weeping out of the PVC that’s the exposed/outer layers of Royalex. A known problem with substandard PVC or good PVC used long term in applications above its rated temperature.
I’ve had the stickiness problem- twice over 39 years. It’s apparently not too wide-spread of a problem with Royalex, so, maybe the manufacturer of Royalex had a bad batch of PVC from their supplier and/or it’s due to storage of canoes in a high heat area which very likely accelerates the weeping.
TL;DR: I used Cascade Complete brand automatic dishwasher detergent. Watch out for methyl alcohol in denatured or similar solvents- it is dangerous!
I have a Pack 12 that I bought new around 1984. About 20 years ago I removed the stickiness using denatured alcohol and lots of rags (and lots of elbow grease!) as recommended at the time by Old Town. The MSDS for that denatured alcohol was almost entirely ethyl alcohol with just a bit of methyl alcohol to denature it (render it unsafe to drink). The second time I removed the stickiness, June 2025, I needed more denatured alcohol but the MSDSs for the locally available stuff showed it was almost entirely methyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol is very unhealthy relative to ethyl acohol- both to breathe vapors and it’s absorbed through skin! Also it’s more flammable than ethyl alcohol. FWIW both burn with an invisible flame. So…
I made a strong solution of Cascade Complete brand automatic dishwasher detergent and scrubbed a quarter of inside surface of the canoe while wearing gloves then rinsed the entire inner surface well with a pressure washer but a garden hose would have worked. I had the canoe leaning on a tree limb at a 45 deg angle to allow drainage. Repeated for rest of inside surface then did outside surface in same manner but sans tree limb. Let dry throughly then treated with 303 Protectant to bring back gloss. Came out well:
The cleaning didn’t appear to damage the exposed, outer PVC plastic but time will tell.
More Info________________
The current manufacturer of Old Town canoes has instructions for cleaning Royalex using (uhg!) methyl alcohol: https://oldtownwatercraft.johnsonoutdoors.com/us/blog/how-clean-sticky-royalex-canoe
Mad River has instructions (CLEANING STICKY ROYALEX HULLS) using xylene which is NOT compatible with PVC per https://www.calpaclab.com/pvc-polyvinyl-chloride-chemical-compatibility-chart/- xylene is rated as “D-Severe Effect”!
That compatibility chart lists detergents as A-Excellent, Ethanol as C-Fair (yikes!), Isopropyl Alcohol as A-Excellent and Methanol as A-Excellent. Finally, some info on web says baking soda works and it, sodium bicarbonate, is rated as compatible- A-Excellent as is borax.
1 Like