I have a Eddyline Fathom that was damaged by a falling tree. It suffered some rips and dents. Eddyling has a tutorial on how to repair rips in the carbonlite material of the kayak and it seems pretty clear and easy (frequently, things seem easy until you get to the doing). The biggest challenge I see is the recommended glue, (Devcon Plastic Weld) sets quickly and the area to be repaired is large enough that it will be difficult to spread the glue and wet out fiberglass before the DPW starts to set. Nevertheless, I will be giving it the old college try.
I’d like to know if anybody has succeeded in getting dents in carbonlite to pop back to, or at least towards, the predented shape.
Photo 1 shows an area of the hull that was dented but not ripped.
Toast make it a planter. You can try but it doesn’t have good memory I’d guess. Those are some big tears. Hard to straighten the bottom . Friend had a raven and it was patched by eddyline rep and it just failed again in short order. It was nothing like that it was the seat and combing coming apart.
Can you make it float again? Yes I doubt it will perform well.
Rough but try it. I’d patch inside then after hard fill crack on inside. Align two broken edges when patching. Possibly easy by using a few pop rivets and wood on exterior or a plate of thin steel like Simpson Anchors at home Depot. Wrap it in wax paper in case glue gets on it. Pull it off after it sits overnight. Then remove and patch tiny rivet holes.
PD52, I wish I saw your post before I applied the Devcon. My repair would have been much better had I nailed all the pieces in place before I glued. I kind of knew I needed to do that but couldn’t figure out what to use for nails.
I thought about drilling holes through the hull and wood splints on the outside of the hull. I was trying to think of something I could use to tie the hull pieces but was thinking I was going to leave the “nail” in place and sand it all flat. I considered:
1 wire. No, corrosion, thermal expansion, it’s gonna leak.
2 string. No. I couldn’t be sure the plastic weld would saturate the string and didn’t want a fabric wick in the hull.
3 fishing line. Possibly would have worked.
I didn’t think of pop rivets. Brilliant.
A Frenchman up north taught me an expression: F it, boys, we ain’t building’ piannas. So, I just glued and hoped weight on top would press the pieces in place.
The Devcon was easy to apply and seemed to stay in place. But it sets devilishly fast. I thought it was stiffening in 8 minutes. So, I worked as fast as I could. I laid a bead of Devcon over the cracks and very quickly took a plastic knife and pressed the glue into the crack until the crack seemed full. I spread Devcon on two pre-cut pieces of 6oz S-glass. Pressed the glue into the glass with a plastic spreader. Transferred the glass into the hull and pressed it in with the spreader. Added second, slightly smaller, piece of FG atop the first and pressed it all in with the spreader. Covered all with wax paper. Dropped sandbags and weight on top. All in 10 minutes. It was tight.
It’s been over 3 months, but I finally paddled the repaired fathom. Not knowing how well the patches would hold, it just seemed like a good idea to wait for the water to warm up.
I wanted to hit a few rocks or logs with the boat. However, the area I paddled had few to hit. I did find one rock just below the surface and perched the repaired part of kayak atop the rock while I shifted my weight to that side and watched the repaired crack from inside. I couldn’t notice any distortion. My confidence in the repair grew. I’d still like to run it onto rocks/logs at speed before I declare it sound, but I’m optimistic about the repair.
One discovery is that the Fathom cockpit is too small for my 6’2" frame. I just don’t fit in the boat well, so, I won’t be keeping it.
As for the “wrinkles” in the hull where the carbonlite is bent/distorted, I think it had an effect on steering. The boat seems to pull slightly to the right, and turning to the right seemed irregular–had to put more lean into it than I thought I should. Eddyline says I can use heat to try to get the hull back into shape. I’m skeptical. I will leave the boat out in the sun on a hot day and see if that helps. I never paddled it prior to the tree falling it, so I can’t compare original and current performance. But overall, I think the boat performs at least okay.
Just wanted to update this post with results of repair attempts, in case anybody else has to decide whether to attempt repair or turn the kayak into a planter.
