Plastic Welding for repairing whitewater boats is a well-known, but
not well documented skill. Hopefully these pages will help you along in
that regard.
Whitewater boating is hard on equipment. Many boaters commonly use
duct tape, glue, kevlar patches, and/or fiberglass to repair damaged boats.
However the best repair material is always the same material the boat is
made from. For most boats this means ABS (Royalex, Royalite, R-84) or HDPE plastic.
ABS and HDPE are thermoplastics, meaning they get softer as they heat up. And
they can be welded with the right equipment. The web pages below some some
examples of plastic welding, the equipment required, and hopefully give you a
few hints on how to repair your boat. (Note: This is not a commercial site,
we're not trying to drum up business. As a matter of fact, we'd prefer to be
on the river and the intent of these web pages is to enable other paddlers to
repair their own boats so we don't have to.)
Questions/comments/brickbats/accolaides to:
Skip Morris (morris@skip.net).
Enjoy... |
