Everything else being equal a heavier boat should be stronger than a light boat. But, everything else is rarely equal. Because of this weight is a poor indicator of strength. I agree that the more-gelcoat-is-better philosophy is misguided. All more gelcoat does is provide a better looking finish without print through and it acts as an ablative layer that you can grind away at for a while before doing any real structural damage. Otherwise it is just brittle and as such may promote early cracking which may propagate into real damage later on. A careful hand-lay up of high quality materials can be almost as light and strong as vacuum bagging. What causes problems is when the layup is sloppy or glass-mat is used in the layup. This will add stiffness and weight and even strength, but it will not contribute as quickly to strength as it does to the weight. The stiffness will make it brittle. A good quality layup is more labor intensive than a sloppy one so it will cost more. If you want to build cheap, I guess going heavy with materials will be the quickest way to get it strong. Materials cost less than quality labor. Nick On Friday, February 28, 2003, at 11:15 AM, Shawn Baker wrote: > Hi Doug, > > What makes a hand-laid kayak stiffer than a vacuum-bagged boat? > > Extra resin. > > Why not a VB'ed boat with extra glass that is the same weight as the > aforementioned hand-laid kayak....much more stiffness _and_ more > strength. And only slightly more cost. > > Resin is more brittle than glass. Resin is much more brittle than > Kevlar, diolene, or polyester cloths. If it were practical, I'd VB my > wooden hulls...it's highly practical to VB a molded glass hull. > > I love the Brit's designs, but I don't buy the more-gelcoat-is-better, > more-resin-is-better mentality. More cloth is better. Resin is just > the matrix for holding the cloth together. :) > > Shawn > >> I still like hand-laid kayaks, as they tend to be fairly stiff, if a >> bit heavier than bagged boats. And as far as galling of plastic kayak >> hulls, aluminium galls badly too. Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Feb 28 2003 - 11:06:16 PST
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