How to Fix a Hole in your Beater Canoe

[Fitz]

I thought I would post this since some members may have to fix a beater canoe some day.

A friend of mine got this OT Penobscot as a wedding gift. It has some sentimental value. Unfortunately, a limb from a large white pine fell one day and punctured the canoe while it was stored on saw horses. It left a gaping hole in the Royalex.

I offered to try and patch it. I used a West Systems epoxy product called G-flex. It is suppose to work well on these types of repairs.

I put the pieces back together as well as possible and covered the exterior with packing tape. It is suggested that the Royalex be heated slightly with a blow torch to oxidize the plastic and assist in bonding. I then glued the edges of the pieces and filled the areas of missing pieces from the inside with thickened G-flex. After that cured, I repeated the process on the outside of the hull. Then fiberglass patches went inside and out, also epoxied on with G-flex. I then painted the patches matching as best I could with Krylon fusion paint made to adhere to plastic.

It seems like a really tough fix. Time will tell. In the meantime, I will talk him into getting a real canoe.

Fitz.

 

[Brad Koeneman]

I too, have used G-Flex to repair royalex on a freinds canoe. Again, time will tell as the repair was just done last fall, but so far so good. We didn't bother with paint as it was, after all, a plastic boat, but I will look into the Krylon. Thanks for the lead.
(The stuff works pretty good on boots, too.)

 

[Fitz]

Paint

Hi Brad: Yes, so far, I remain impressed with the epoxy. I painted mostly due to the need for UV protection of the epoxy.