Rick Sylvia wrote: > > My plastic boat is getting a little roughed up on the hull. No gouges or > deep scrapes to speak of, but light scrathes and scuffing. So's mine. They all do that. > > 1) I'm assuming that it would eventually effect the speed and manuverability > of the boat due to increased friction against the water. Right, but... > At my skill level, it's negligable,.... Right again... > but for educational purposes, I'd think that you'd want to > do something with the scraches, correct? Actually, no. > > 2) Okay, based on question #1 - do what? It's not like a car that you can > buff, there's nothing deep to fill in, etc. Is there some sort or kayak wax > or something to smooth it out? Better yet, being plastic, what would happen > if I very carefully heated the hull with a heat gun just enough to melt the > surface so that it would smooth itself out and cool down within a few > seconds of removing the heat? The hazards of heating plastic kayak hulls with heat guns or [gasp*] propane torches far outweigh the benefits you're likely to see. Certain kinds of plastics have a melt temperature that's lower than their fusion temperature, meaning you might have to get it hotter than you want (ie, liquid) before it'll stick back together. This, I think, is not a good thing. The exception would be Prijon plastic. John Winters once opined that scratches on a plastic boat are more of a problem than scratches on a glass boat because you get fuzzy pieces of plastic sticking out. If you have fuzzies sticking out, clip them off flush, otherwise, keep paddling. Steve *--Not to be confused with GASP, our listmom's home away from PW :) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Oct 25 2000 - 12:31:14 PDT
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