{"id":1913,"date":"2009-09-02T15:09:06","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T20:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/?p=1913"},"modified":"2010-06-27T10:38:12","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T15:38:12","slug":"installing-canoe-skid-plates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/installing-canoe-skid-plates\/","title":{"rendered":"Installing Canoe Skid Plates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"p7050505\"I\u00a0purchased my new canoe just in time for my trip\u00a0to the\u00a0Adirondacks, and it was a rugged three day canoe trip that left my canoe<\/a> looking like it\u00a0had been in hard use for a decade. Several weeks\u00a0after the Adirondacks trip\u00a0I nearly punched a hole through the bow of\u00a0my new\u00a0canoe on Antietam Creek. It was time to install a kevlar skid plate.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen skid plates peel off after only a few uses, so I considered having this one \u00a0professionally installed, but then decided that after all my years of paddling I really should know how to do this myself. And when I went online I discovered numerous techniques to install a skid plate, and although I tried to follow one technique I quickly discovered that I wasn’t entirely prepared, so my attempt ended up as\u00a0learn as you go. But I must have done alright with the installation because it’s been three months and the plates are still holding fast with no signs of lift.<\/p>\n

Here are the steps I took.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"kevlarpatchstretch\"Step 1. Pre-stretching the patches. <\/strong>It may not sound important but I realized right\u00a0away\u00a0these patches are going to expand once\u00a0I begin to form them to the hull, so\u00a0the stretching allowed\u00a0me to get a more accurate approximation of\u00a0how much coverage the patch is going to provide. It helps to know the coverage so you can prepare the\u00a0canoe surface\u00a0accordingly.\u00a0In the image I only used a few light weights to\u00a0stretch the patches in a horizontal position for about\u00a0two hours.\u00a0I’ve heard that hanging the patches\u00a0with a light weight attached is another approach, but no matter what approach you choose be sure to stretch them some way.<\/p>\n

\"kevlarpatchlayout\"Step 2. Outlining the patch coverage area.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0While canoeing on Antietam Creek a few weeks earlier I hit a rock and punched a small hole in the bow of my canoe, so I wanted to cover the\u00a0hole and reinforce the area around\u00a0it with the patch. I also wanted to cover as much\u00a0of the\u00a0hull of\u00a0 the stern side because that is the part of stern that takes the most abuse, so\u00a0outlining the coverage area with a heavy black marker allowed me to\u00a0prepare the area and position the patch the way I wanted after it’s soaked with the resin.<\/p>\n

\"coveragetapeoff\"Step 3.\u00a0Surface preparation.<\/strong> Once I outlined the patch coverage area I “lightly” sanded within the outline. I again\u00a0wiped the area clean with rubbing alcohol and lightly touched up my original marker outline\u00a0that I scuffed off during the sanding process. At this point you may want to consider taping off the area outside the patch coverage area to protect from resin drips but be sure to allow room for the patch to expand during the installation process.\u00a0I didn’t allow enough for\u00a0expansion and when my patch expanded over the\u00a0tape and I had to stop the whole process and remove the tape.<\/p>\n

\"p7040428\"Step 4. Mix resin and placing the patch. <\/strong>This is where time is critical. My first thing was to mix\u00a0the resin according to directions and spread about half of the mixture on a large flat piece of cardboard.\u00a0And according to directions I placed the patch into the resin and\u00a0worked the resin in until the patch was saturated; I\u00a0then\u00a0placed the patch\u00a0into position and only lightly pressed it into position at this point. I applied the second patch to the resin then placed\u00a0it into position and immediately went to work on the first patch I placed into position. Caution: I used too much resin on\u00a0the first patch and was scraping every bit of residual I could find to saturate the second patch.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"p7040430\"Step 5. Smoothing the patch. <\/strong>The tools I used were a 6 inch foam paint roller and a 4 inch plastic putty knife; the putty knife turned out to be the most useful. I began with the first patch I placed,\u00a0smoothing it with the paint roller with motions beginning from the center to the outside edges, then\u00a0did the same to the second patch.<\/p>\n

\"p7050515\"And this was not the\u00a0one touch\u00a0process like the directions indicated it would be. I needed to alternate my attention\u00a0from\u00a0patch to patch until I felt they fit the hull as\u00a0tight and secure as possible. The paint roller was\u00a0fine\u00a0for the first round of smoothing but not for\u00a0obtaining a tight seal.\u00a0In this photo\u00a0the patch needs to be smoothed and flattened\u00a0and the rounded edges need to be feathered tight with the putty knife.<\/div>\n

\"p70404311\"On the second\u00a0round\u00a0of smoothing I switched to the putty knife because I couldn’t apply enough pressure with the paint roller. I switched my attention to each patch twice and was ready to call it a\u00a0finished project\u00a0when I noticed the edges were still not entirely sealed. So again I alternated between each patch focusing on feathering the edges with the plastic putty knife as tightly as I could without squeezing the resin from the patch.<\/p>\n

\"Feathering<\/p>\n

A shot of feathering the edges of the patch with the putty knife. Once satisfied I allowed the patches\u00a0to set for a few minutes, then returned to finish feathering any unsealed edges with gentle taps\u00a0with the sharpest edge of the putty knife. Be very careful when doing this because the resin will\u00a0fasten\u00a0to even the slightest touch from an object at this point. Once I was satisifed the job was complete I wiped off the excess resin that ran down the side of the canoe and allowed to dry for 24 hours then lightly sanded the kevlar plate\u00a0to a smoother appearance.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0purchased my new canoe just in time for my trip\u00a0to the\u00a0Adirondacks, and it was a rugged three day canoe trip that left my canoe looking like it\u00a0had been in hard use for a decade. Several weeks\u00a0after the Adirondacks trip\u00a0I nearly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1913"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moshannonfalls.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}