My carbon paddle is losing it's gelcoat?

When my carbon paddle gets wet and dries it is all cloudy and looks like it has residue on it. The guy I bought it from said he cleaned it and put a coat of Mcguires car wax on it. Is it that or is my gel coat getting to thin. Also can I put a new gel coat on a paddle? I know you can on carbon fiber hoods. Thanks, Mark

Mark, even if you had a profile posted,
I would still peg this as a troll !



Jack L

Not likely to have gel-coat

My werner little dipper
Has a few rough spots along the bottom of the blade that have cut me. I’m thinking of adding some clear epoxy to smooth it and sanding it down. What do you think?

Sounds good
On the other hand, you could just avoid holding it on that end. :slight_smile:

My Wenonah Black Jack carbon grip
got gooey from sun screen on my hands, so I’m really careful not to let the sunscreen run onto the carbon paddles.



I know this doesn’t help the O.P., but it does show that others have had issues with the finish of carbon paddles.



The Black Jack is essentially a ZRE Medium.

I think I may have an answer. My
Clinch River paddle blades are made with epoxy over carbon over a wood core. The clear epoxy top layer is a bit thicker than it needs to be, and due to flexing and extending the blade in whitewater strokes, the epoxy top layer has developed fine micro cracks at the surface. As you might expect, the cracks are parallel to the blade tip. Because they are very tiny and quite numerous, they appear as a grey-whitish haze when viewed at more distance. They do not seem to be leading to any kind of problem, but it would be better if the maker had kept the epoxy top layer thinner, just enough to fill in the weave in the carbon.



Another possibility is that your top layer, almost certainly epoxy, has developed a haze from sun exposure. Sun “gets to” epoxy faster than it does to vinylester or polyester. Instead of messing with waxes, you might try cleaning and applying a high quality spar or UV resistant varnish. That’s what I do to protect epoxy coated boat thwarts, etc.

Would Penetrol
be of any use?



Jim

Haven’t used Penetrol, don’t know
what it would do.