Re: [Paddlewise] boat abuse/keel strips

From: Dave Kruger <dkruger_at_pacifier.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 16:21:20 -0800
Dan Hagen wrote:
> 
> Philip wrote:
> 
> > I've been following a lot of the suggestions for installing
> > sacrificial fibreglass or Kevlar strips. I've been using for
> > the last several years:  Marine-Tex, [snipped and edited]

> This stuff sounds great. I have a couple of questions. First, can it be
> applied to gel coat, or do you need to remove the gel coat? Second, is
> the stuff brittle? In other words, if you build up a fairly deep rub
> strip, will it break off if you wack it laterally?  [snip]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Marine-Tex is filled
epoxy -- probably with alumimum and/or glass fiber, IIRC.  It is pretty
durable, and sticks like hell to **roughened** fiberglass surfaces. 
Applied to gel coat, I'd guess the weak link would be the gel coat layer
itself.  No fibers in gel coat.

A strip of glass epoxied on with some fumed silica (aka Cabosil) added as
filler (or, for the truly abrasive folks:  200/400 grit corundum!) would
probably be even more durable.  Over on rec.boats.building they natter
about using dyes in their epoxy.  An email to System Three
(http://www.systemthree.com/index.html) would probably net an authoritative
answer from Kern Hendricks (himself somewhat abrasive, but very
knowledgeable).

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

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Received on Mon Mar 15 1999 - 16:24:25 PST

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