Hi Everyone,

It's about time we uploaded a new video tutorial! - This time, it's a straight forward, easy-to-follow guide to making a light to medium structual repair to a damaged composite kayak, canoe or boat. There's no special equipment necessary we just use a top quality epoxy repair resin, carbon/kevlar reinforcement and release film stretched tight to make effective, neat repairs to the hull.

Even if you don't have a boat (let alone a damaged one) then you'll probably still find some of the techniques used here of interest for your own projects.

Here's a link to the Kayak Repair Tutorial in our Online Composites Learning Centre.

I'll embed the video below but don't forget, we shoot all these in full High Definition so for a better quality version, please view on YouTube or the Learning Centre and choose 'HD'.



Any questions or feedback welcome.

Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Interest video.

Is there not a design fault here  however ?. The repair may not be strong enough for this customers application.

Should the KAYAK not have been repaired using carbon/dyneema fabric to absorb the shocks or is there a compatibility problem with easy composites resins because of the dyneema content

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Regards,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Maggie

Hi Maggie,

No, there is no 'design fault'. The Kayak itself is made from a carbon/Kevlar hybrid fabric. The repair is made from a matching carbon/kevlar hybrid. Kevlar, like Dyneema, is a high tenacity synthetic fibre. In fact, Kevlar (and other Aramid fibres) are much more common in canoe and kayak production than Dyneema. The repair we've made in this video is perfectly suited to the job and will provide the stiffness and impact resistance neccessary to keep this hull strong for years.

Dyneema (or more likely a UHMWPE fibre from another manufacturer) is a very interesting fibre with impressive elongation-to-break and abrasion resistant properties but, as you've alluded to, it is extremely difficult to bond to and generally needs to be used layered between reinforcement that is easier to bond to. There is no incompatibilty between our epoxy and UHMWPE fibre any more than there is with most epoxies and UHMWPE; this type of fibre is just very difficult for resin matrixes to bond to (you can completely forget polyester and most vinylesters).

One thing I can say for sure, this repair will be sound and virtualy all such repairs (and the majority of boat constructions in the first place) use glass, carbon, carbon/aramid, or diolen. Dyneema hulls exist but they need to be carefully designed to exploit the properties of the fibre whilst circumnavigating its dissadvantages.

I hope this clarifies the situation for you.

Best regards, Matt


Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales