http://neptunesrangers.blogspot.com/2013/11/permanent-plastic-kayak-scratch-repair.html
This is a new (to me) approach to fixing deep gouges in poly kayaks. It resembles older methods where poly repair sticks are heated and dripped in, but instead uses poly tarp pressed into a gouge with a hot putty knife. The “tarp” seems to be not solid poly sheet, but the woven tarp material often seen in blue, green, and other colors.
I think I gathered from the short video that they are also having success repairing tears and splits by melting in tarp material from both sides.
While most of us never see a reason to fix gouges in poly boats, some people may benefit therapeutically from this new method. Don’t burn yourself with that putty knife.
Confirmed from photo: their tarps are
the woven variety. Probably the quasi-fibrous nature of the material is one reason that the repairs are found to be harder than the boat hull being repaired.
That’s how Tegris kayaks
Are fixed, the material looks like a loose weave poly tarp without coating and turns black when melted. Not sure if that’s what happens with poky tarps.
my boat
Yes - basic polytarp in sheet (tarp) form.
I am not an expert on the process, as I have never done it myself. But that is my boat (Dagger Alchemy) in the video.
At the stern, I had a crack in the plastic that went through (rear hatch would slowly fill with water). They heated the area and heated a probe and use that to “knead” the boat’s plastic o both sides of the crack to try to reseal the hole. they then covered the crack with tarp material. Not sure which, but one of those two steps did close the hole - no more leakage.
For the video, they filled a couple of deeper gouges I had. Normally I wouldn’t worry about those, as I will just be adding more gouges to the hull.
This was done late last summer and the tarp repairs are still holding fine.
You’ll see in the video and pictures
that the material holds color when hot-pressed onto the hull. The “inventor” even uses the process to put large areas of color wear surface on boats.
The guy claims to have tried all sorts of materials for hot repair, and to have tried G-flex, which he despises. I regard poly as the best potential repair material for a poly boat. And poly tarp material, with its drawn linear strands, might retain better internal structure after application.
I’ve got some gouged poly boats, and some woven poly tarp. I may give it a try.
I tried this method…
a few weeks ago having seen the video posted on the WC Paddler forum. Administered to an old beat-to-hell pumpkin seed boat I’ve had for about 12 years or so. The kids have been hard on that kayak thus it had plenty of lacerations to repair.
I used a thin flexible putty knife and heated it with a commercial heat gun instead of the torch. Worked like a champ and even looks decent as the boat is orange.
We’re frozen over now in Wyoming so we gave the boat a test drive on a local sledding hill. Repairs held up nicely even in the sub-freezing environment.
Thanks for reporting your result.
A new angle on poly repair like this has to be “vetted” by the experience of many people, and any bugs will show up in personal experiences also.
Thanks!
Was there a version using an iron to apply tarp over a larger area? I got so many scratches that working hem one by one would take forever. I get it that it works well for deep gauges, but what if I wanted to add a new “skin” to my thinning hull?
hmm
I don’t know of a way to apply over a large area (to add a layer on top of current boat), but the guy who developed this did apply a layer of bed liner to the inside of a thermoformed Eddyline a while back. I never saw it, but he claimed that the boat was bombproof after that.
The Eddylines are different material
That is suitable to use adhesives with. Unfortunately, that does not work well for the poly boats, hence the heat application and the tarp. I might give the iron and a piece of tarp under aluminum foil a rtry one of these days to see if it works. My boat is still in good enough shape to not need that, I was just curious, as the bottom is now fully covered in scratches (and some gauges) and is slowly beginning to get thinner due to loss of material.