Thinking of adding a keel strip to my plastic day boat. Pro or con?
They are clunky looking and slow down boats a little. C Jacobsen just wrote an article about why he is against them. I like to use a couple of layers of glass tape and epoxy over the keel ends and then paint it to match.
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Con: Very hard to add to a rotomolded plasttic boat (very little sticks). Have a better chance with thermoformed plastic.
I put them on my thermoformed boat and the glass one. Plastic is on its own.
I added Keel Eazy strips to the bow and stern of my kevlar kayak. My wince-meter hasn’t gone off since.
If I had a plastic boat that was getting beat up, I’d try Crystal Clear Gorilla tape.
The sound of scraping a hard hull on rock or concrete is worse than fingernails on chalk board. Fingernails grow back.
Curious. Why?
Why what?
A number of people in our Club applied Keel Eazy on their Kevlar and fiberglass kayaks a very years ago. Almost without exception the adhesive began to fail after 2-4 years and the strip began to peel off, shift, or collect sand. The remaining adhesive is a real pain to remove. When I had it on my boat all of the major scratches seemed to always be on either side of the Keel Eazy rather than on the keel, so it didn’t help much. Not being too concerned with an exact color match on my 21 year old boat, I’ve been happier with doing some minor gel coat repair every few years.
I consider 2-4 years adequate for something made to be sacrificial. Goo Gone takes the adhesive right off. To each their own.
Thanks for the replies. I think I’ll try the gorilla tape. I’ve put that on the keel of my crossover to keep the skeg from popping out on ledges and it’s worked ok for that but not as durable as I would like. I’ll try it now on my day boat. I’ve just been spoiled by the quality of the P & H & Prijon plastics. The new boat just seems to be a somewhat softer plastic. I wouldn’t care that much but this particular boat is discontinued and I really like it.
Keel-Eazy Is completely different than it was 2-4 years ago. Far superior product now. Better wear material and no messy/ gooey adhesive. works great on eddyline thermoformed kayaks.
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We bought some 3” wide garden edging about 1/8” thick, for another project, straight away I thought this could be used to thermoform as keel strip. Has anyone tried garden edging for this purpose?
Isn’t garden edging kind of rigid? Kayaks have rounded edges.
I think it would thermoform quite easily using a heat gun.