I put my hands on a Wenonah Spirit II in T-Formex today. I pushed down on the bottom of the canoe and got that nice stiff flex I know from Royalex. Could it be true that T-Formex will perform like Royalex? The price was $2098 I think. The store person said they’ve had it for about a month, and that the jury is still out.
In addition to Esquif and Wenonah, Swift canoe now plans to mold Prospectors in T-Formex. I have yet to see a T-Formex boat. As for how it will compare to Royalex, (apart from being more expensive) I think time will tell.
I looked at an Esquif Mallard last year and was impressed with the material. The only reservation I have is, as you say, “time will tell”. As the sheets are being made by Esquif in their Quebec factory, I would wonder if the QC will be as good as Royalex when it was being produced by Uniroyal.
Not all Royalex was alike. Toward the end companies specified thinner sheets. Remains to be seen whether Esquif will do a standard sheet or differing thicknesses
We have lots of Esquif boats in Maine as we are close to Quebec. I’ve seen a couple of the newer ones.
@pblanc said:
In addition to Esquif and Wenonah, Swift canoe now plans to mold Prospectors in T-Formex. I have yet to see a T-Formex boat. As for how it will compare to Royalex, (apart from being more expensive) I think time will tell.
Well, I petted, stroked, thumped on and pushed on a T-Formex Wenonah at Rutabagas in June and it felt impressive. To me, it felt a bit stiffer than royalex but not as stiff as poly?
I’m glad to hear Buffalo canoes will be back in business, using those old Blue Hole molds. Ozark streams are the perfect venue for T-Formex if it pans out to be all it is proposed to be? Maybe Mohawk will try it next?
Did I get the feeling from my brief conversation with the retail store that it may be that Esquif wouldn’t sell to others rather than others not wanting to buy T-Formex sheets? Maybe Old Town and Mad River think they can do without, but why wouldn’t Mohawk want to use T-Formex? Who knows…
As Kim said, the apparent stiffness and toughness of Royalex varied a lot depending on the thickness of the sheet specified by the canoe manufacturer. But in the early days of Royalex in the 1970s, the sheets tended to be uniformly thick and the boats were very tough, but very heavy. As time went on, sheet was thinned in the forward and aft thirds to save weight and a few makers specified "ultra-light sheet which was very thin.
Uniroyal stopped producing Royalex in 2000 and thereafter the stuff was produced by Spartech corporation, until Spartech was acquired by Poly-One in 2013. Poly-One shut down Royalex production at the sole Warsaw, Indiana plant within a year. I have read that as many as 25% of sheets were rejected by some makers due to voids in the core. It is widely felt that around the year 2000 when Spartech acquired the Royalex production facility that the stiffness and strength of the material declined, due to the change in ownership and OHSA requirements which forced changes to the composition.
I have worked on dozens of Royalex canoes over the years and can say from personal experience that the thickness of the outer vinyl layers and the bond strength of the vinyl to the ABS strata declined rather dramatically toward the end of Royalex production. Also in my experience, Wenonah Royalex boats tended to use thinner Royalex sheet on average.
@melenas said:
Did I get the feeling from my brief conversation with the retail store that it may be that Esquif wouldn’t sell to others rather than others not wanting to buy T-Formex sheets? Maybe Old Town and Mad River think they can do without, but why wouldn’t Mohawk want to use T-Formex? Who knows…
I doubt very much if a small company like Esquif would be able to supply enough T-Formex sheet to supply all the other canoe manufacturers who would seek to replace their Royalex production. Perhaps they could license the process to others, but to establish themselves as a Uniroyal/Spartech size producer of raw material would be challenging indeed.
I have worked on dozens of Royalex canoes over the years and can say from personal experience that the thickness of the outer vinyl layers and the bond strength of the vinyl to the ABS strata declined rather dramatically toward the end of Royalex production. Also in my experience, Wenonah Royalex boats tended to use thinner Royalex sheet on average.
A good barometer of the decline of Royalex quality can be seen in the Old Town Pack canoe, perhaps the thinnest Royalex hull that I am aware of. Earlier canoes exhibited only a slight flex in the bottom of the hull, but later production could not be trusted without an in-water test. Some of the Packs I have seen oil-canned so badly I was shocked that Old Town shipped them to dealers.
@pblanc said:
In addition to Esquif and Wenonah, Swift canoe now plans to mold Prospectors in T-Formex. I have yet to see a T-Formex boat. As for how it will compare to Royalex, (apart from being more expensive) I think time will tell.
I fondled a T-Formex VertigeX at NOC last month. Seemed pretty bomber.
@pblanc said:
In addition to Esquif and Wenonah, Swift canoe now plans to mold Prospectors in T-Formex. I have yet to see a T-Formex boat. As for how it will compare to Royalex, (apart from being more expensive) I think time will tell.
Well, I petted, stroked, thumped on and pushed on a T-Formex Wenonah at Rutabagas in June and it felt impressive. To me, it felt a bit stiffer than royalex but not as stiff as poly?
I’m glad to hear Buffalo canoes will be back in business, using those old Blue Hole molds. Ozark streams are the perfect venue for T-Formex if it pans out to be all it is proposed to be? Maybe Mohawk will try it next?
Terry, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Buffalo to crank out new boats.
There has been some discussion on cboats.net. Comments there have been rather positive. I would guess that other canoe manufacturers may not want to purchase their raw materials from a competitor.