On Monday 30 July 2007 19:30, Derek wrote: > How does one assess the viability of an older plastic > kayak? Plastic can become brittle over time, even if > its stored indoors. Sunlight can make ageing even > worse. How do you determine how much life an older > kayak has left? If you have a kayak infront of you, > how do you determine how brittle it has become? Immersing nylon screws in boiling water recovers their strength quite a bit - all plastics need to have a certain amount of humidity in them, to attain maximum strength. I would think washing the plastic kayak in fresh water, once in a while, is one way of keeping them OK - a sunblocker, like 303 Aerospace, can be used to block the UV, or you could paint it with a 'silver' colour, totally blocking light reaching the surface! Tord PS A combination of UV and frost kills any plastic, in the long run! The UV cracks the surface, water enter the cracks and the frost does the rest! This combination even kills rocks, eventually! *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Jul 31 2007 - 05:02:44 PDT
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