Holy Canoe!
February 18, 2011.jpeg)
What kinda fool buys a canoe with a hole in it? Apparently this kinda fool.
Old Town is one of the premiere canoe manufacturers, known for their quality . I had been searching craigslist for several months and finally found a good ABS plastic canoe offered at a good price. It looked a little rough in the picture but i called the kid and decided to take the two hour drive up to Stewart Florida and check it out.
I was a little concerned when I saw that it had been impaled on something. Someone had done a very shoddy repair and the boat had other issues. It was missing a thwart and looked like it had been severely abused and stored incorrectly.
It had somethings going for it. A) It was an Old Town. something I'd always wanted. B) It was large with a stable rocker to it. It would be the perfect size and design for taking people and stuff to Cape Sable. C) It was ABS Plastic. Pretty tough stuff, It could take a bounce down the highway at 65mph and probably be ok. I could also cut the canoe in half and it would still float. D) The price was right.
Having come so far I decided to buy it, lashed it to the pickup and took a long slow drive down US1 back to Fort Lauderdale.
.
NOT GOOD!
Amazingly the damn thing didn't leak when i tested it in the swimming pool but since I was able to remove the repair patch with one flip of my finger I thought it best to do a new repair job on it
ORIGINAL PATCH
I was busy with work and all for several weeks but I set Super Bowl Sunday aside to work on it. Getting a good patch onto polyethylene plastic was knew for me so I researched it a little and had bought my supplies ahead of time.
...and of course the first step to any good repair job is Espresso
With that accomplished I proceeded to open up the wound with a dremel tool, rough up the surface with 80 grit sandpaper and clean it with acetone
.
I had read several sources that suggested FLAMING The plastic surface. What the hell is that you ask? It's basically quickly passing a propane torch over the surface a few times. Something about getting the molecules to line up correctly for the epoxy. (DO I LOOK LIKE A CHEMIST ?) I did this faithfully hoping it would help.
I then tried to get fancy and make the patch look nice. I wanted to give it a biscuit aka football shape. I thought this might be more aesthetically pleasing and was my own little acknowledgement of the biscuit repairs to the wooden boats of yesteryear.
This was totally pointless. Although the epoxy adhered very well to the surface my attempt to shape it only gave it a slight raised edge which I thought might snag on something. I ended up sanding down the edge and going over the whole football shape with one large rectangular piece of fiberglass while feathering out the epoxy. The next day I did a similar repair on the inside
This stuff. G-flex is the bomb. I could have used an epoxy as basic as JB weld but this was supposed to be stronger, more flexible and adhere better.My patch looks like crap. But with six layers of fiberglass and really good adhesion I feel safe in the boat.
FINAL PRODUCT outside and in. Kinda like the guy who did the work it's not much to look at but extremely capable .
I did a few other minor patches on the canoe and replaced the missing thwart with a nice strong piece of oak.
Drake and I took it out for a test last week
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
The trip was suppose to be a short 5 mile cruise but Dad took a wrong turn and we ended up on a 12 mile odyssey and didn't get back to the truck until after dark. Drake was a bit angry with me and I'm proud of the way he dug deep and kept on truckin. We were both extremely sore the next day. The good news is the canoe is now a sea worthy craft.
Posted by Florida Canoe Adventures.
