I may be crazy, but I’m searching for a heavy paint/liquid plastic to paint on the high wear areas of my Royalex and composite canoes in lieu of installing complicated, often unsatisfactory kevlar/glass skid plates. My hope is to find something that could simply be painted on to provide a renewable, sacraficial surface. It wouldn’t protect from the BIG CRASH or patch an already excessively worn end, but could absorb some of the punishment from normal bumps and scapes that eventually wear out canoe ends. I’d like to simply slosh on a new layer after every rocky trip and don’t give a rat’s behind what it looks like. Any ideas?
Epoxy/Graphite
I use a mixture of epoxy and graphite powder on the bottom of my wooden boats to provide protection against scrapes. You can roll it on with small sponge rollers.
Plain old Eepoxy is what I use.
I have a kevlar canoe and every year race it in the New river canoe race where many times the water level is low and we do a lot of scraping over rocks.
The following week I just brush on a coat of epoxy. If there are some deep gashes,I some time use two or three coats.
Another thing we do if the water level is low; just before the race using duct tape make a cheap and dirt “skid plate”.
Cheers,
JackL
Sacrificial Duct Tape
I have a friend who keeps a strip of duct tape run from the bow to the stearn under his royalex whitewater boat.
He replaces it every couple of runs.
I used Shoe Goo on Royalex. It’s still
there after a year of rocky rivers. Starting to peel on a few places along the edges, but you can remove the loose stuff and add more.
I bought it at WalMart. It’s clear and not too noticeable. I cleaned the hull and dried it. Then squeezed the stuff out of the tube and spread it with a piece of cardboard.
I like the duct tape idea, but the ugly factor would annoy the provider-of-boats.
Just Epoxy Resin
Works for me, and has held up rather well. It has a few scratches but no nicks or tears.
I don’t think I’d ever use skid plates with Kevlar. I like the resin only. If I want to jazz it up a little I get a can of red spray paint from DG and put a coat of color on it. Most time paddling I never see it, so no big deal.
BG
Does epoxy flex and have memory like
Royalex? Maybe there’s different kinds or application techniques, but the epoxy I’ve seen will crack. Not an issue on composite boats, but I like the flexibility of Shoo Goo on Royalex.
bedliner
LineX, Rhinoliner, products like that.
Pepboys has DIY kits with the liner in two parts, I think it is a brush-on in kit form.
I have no idea if it will stick to Royalex, but the stuff is literally TNT resistant, and I have seen it creatively used in applications besides bed liners.
The city of Long Beach, Ca., had a trash collection boat made to spec, it is a triple aluminum pontoon boat.
The zincs were poorly designed, and electralisys (sp?) dissolved the toons so they were paper thin, and the boat sank in its slip.
After recovering the boat, they had the toons sprayed by American Bed Liner, and that boat still collects trash in the harbor.
They also use it as a blast resistant building material, the Pentagon used it to rebuild and reinforce.
I wonder how it sticks to odd materials like Royalex, fiberglass, and polyethylene.
I thought that Kevlar Felt aficianados
had low standards, but y’all have found a new common denominator.
Bedliner skid plate
I have used duct tape and shoo goo. Duct tape is super quick, but I often lose it in a single trip. I’ve used shoo goo to cover gouges on my Royalex and it does well. Haven’t tried skid plating with it but it would probably work. But I’m really intrigued about the bedliner solution. I should have thought of that because it is simple and dries thick and hard. I would bet it will stick to composites, we’ll have to see about Royalex and polyethelene. Thanks to everyone for the discussion.
a friend did it …
On the bottom of his sailboat.
Works great.
I also don’t know how it would stick to plastic.
Teflon strips
Teflon is available in paper thin strips that are self-adhesive. They are very tough and easy to put on but hard to find.
bicycle tire skid plates
I saw a beat up old Blue Hole with what I took to be new bicycle tire skid plates. I asked the owner and he told me they went on when the boat was new.
Looked like a third of a 20" tire glued on same as you would do the kevlar.
Fix Proportional to Need?
I’d forgotten about the bed liner option. Sounds worth a shot and it couldn’t look worse than lots of the kevlar felt jobs I’ve seen, including some factory jobs.
The heavy (multi-coats) layers of fusion paint I put on the ends of my royalex Northwind Have held up pretty well, but then I’m fairly easy on my boats. The Northwind was damaged by a frieght handler and I built up the worn spot with epoxy prior to painting what essentially is a skid plate of paint. I think it looks better than the big kevlar felt jobs, and its worked for my kind of use.
The bedliner idea seems like an intermediate fix
that might be fine for most. Wonder if you can paint over it?
The bike tire might be just the ticket for a real beater type boat. I guess the guy isn’t stalking deer or doing freestyle in the old Blue Hole!
I don’t know if you can paint bedliner…
but some shops will mix it in a variety of colors.
Bike Tires and Bedliner?
Never would have thought of these things. I wish MY mind was as creative. Next time I have to patch that royalite Mohawk I know what I’m going to try now. WW
Question I have…
about both the bedliner and the bicycle tire ideas is (other than will it stick to Royalex), how will the canoe slide over rocks and logs? Will those materials grab instead of sliding? One of the beauties of Royalex is that it slides over obstructions.
Good Point Al
I have the do-it-yourself painted bedliner in our truck that I purchased several years ago. Things don’t slide arround as badly with it, so stands to reason the canoe with a bedliner bottom wouldn’t slide as easily. WW
One bedliner guy told me…
he could make the texture baby-butt smooth, if a customer wanted, but almost all want that non-slip texture.