I have about a 3" “tear” in my 17’ Aluminum Grumman canoe. What is the best way to repair this? Can I have a welder fix this?
Alumaloy
– Last Updated: Aug-24-05 1:16 PM EST –
http://www.ihpva.org/pipermail/trikes/2003-December/028843.html
Cut and paste to your browser...discussion of an aluminum welding materiel that uses a propane torch for repair of aluminum.
http://www.alumiweld.com/
http://pagebiz.com/bds/aluminum/repair.html
The expert in alu canoe repairs
is David Brown in Virginia. I believe he used to rivet all repairs, but who knows now. Using an aluminum solder (Alumalloy etc) still involves heating the tempered hull, which may result in a soft & weak spot.
Jim
http://canoeadventures.home.mindspring.com/
you can get
a piece of aluminum from lowes an patch yourself if your handy? its not hard very small repair to do where are ya located? is it near a rib?
Fiberglass it and get on with life.
This picture
http://photos.imageevent.com/dgb8363/broadriver/websize/dgbcanoe.jpg
was taken 30 years after we bought the boat (Grumman 18 lightweight)for $20, you can imagine what kind of shape it was in. 30 years of service, and about that many patches, now the daughter’s family has it.
Get glass cloth and West System, System 3, or RAKA epoxy from Boater’s World, West Marine, or on the web at Defender Industries. If you gotta get back on the water quick, use Devco 5 min epoxy from the hardware store and some cloth cut from polyester pants, and put a real repair on it later. My theory: Al. boats are for hard use, not looks.
