Great News
We went tonight to look at the 170’s. Turns out he had two. The one I was looking at with the scuffs was a 2013 demo model from a local small high-end outdoor store. This one was only $645.
The second was an almost mint condition 2014 and he was asking $945.
Long story short, I am the new owner of the 2013 model and, super nice guy, he let me have it for $600.
The reason I went with the 2013 with the scuffs is that it was a straight boat. When I flipped the 2014 over it looked warped and from stern to bow made a very slight c curve.
Thanks for the tips on what to look for in regards to purchasing a used kayak!
Any tips on smoothing out some of the scuffs/rough plastic on the hull or is it best to leave them as is?
Scratch and scuff repair
Search the threads and people talk about hot spoons or using razors.
If I had a scratch that almost holed the hull I might consider a plastic welder patch. If it’s just for aesthetics or “drag” my opinion is don’t ef with it. I have Lot’s of seat time and never said “hey this thing is a lot slower since I bumped that submerged stump” nor have I thought " wow this tracks better since I picked that little plastic swirly off the bottom"
Maybe ski glider wax?
I have yet to try this, and often wondered if anyone else has: years ago I managed a wilderness sports shop during the height of the first US XC ski boom in the 1970’s. We sold thousands of pairs of skis, most of them with P-tex bases, which we prepped with Swix “red glider”, a hard downhill ski wax. The purpose of melting a layer of this into the base was to seal and smooth the polyethylene thermoplastic (which is like the material used to make most plastic kayaks) to make a fast running surface. I would re-wax my synthetic based skiis this way during the season as they would get scratched and “fuzzed” from wear.
It’s occurred to me that melting a layer of red glider onto the scratched up base of a kayak could smooth it out somewhat. You don’t need any fancy tools to do this – we used to watch for small “travel-size” clothes irons at thrift stores (clothes irons will only work IF they do not have holes for steam – the holes clog with wax if you use a steam iron). You hold the block of glider wax against the iron and drip it onto the plastic surface and then run the iron over the plastic to spread a thin later around. For a ski you then scrape the layer thin with a metal edged tool but I doubt this would be necessary nor practical with a curved boat hull.
I have used the P-tex sticks they sell for patching gouges in ski bases to fill deep scratches in poly boats. You can get a glue-gun like kit for melting and applying the stick material, but unless you have a lot of very beat up boats that would be kind of overkill.
I’ll have to try this, root through my ski gear and see if I still have any red glider (have not used it since becoming a Luddite, only using wooden XC skis for the past 15 years). My Easky got pretty scuffed by our bony streams during the dry Summer of 2013 and can be my guinea pig.
Doubt it would change the performance, though you never know. It sure works on sleds. A group of us employees back in 1977 glider-waxed the entire bottom of one of the shop’s rental 4-man toboggans and took it to a steeply pitched snow-covered golf course on our day off. The thing was ungodly fast and all I remember about that first (and last) ride was the screaming and everybody tumbling off at high speed as it hurtled towards a tree. The emptied sled glanced sideways off the tree, went airborne, landed right side up and continued down the slope, across a two lane road and into a parking lot on the other side where it shot under a parked semi and embedded into a snow bank beyond. We had to use a palm sander to strip the wax off before we could safely return it to the rental fleet.
Wow!
– Last Updated: Jun-24-15 12:31 PM EST –
Wow... what a story! I saw a method using a heat gun I think I will slowly/safely try. If you do try the wax let me know. I don't have anything inexpensive that I want to try on right now... maybe worth getting an old beat up whitewater kayak or something to test.