Easy! DIY Kydex Keel Guard for your kayak
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- Kydex is a cheap and easy way to protect your kayak hull. You can use as little or as much as you want, that's the great thing with DIY projects.
0:00 materials needed
0:24 heating and moulding
3:23 sticking it in place
4:40 outro - Спорт
Smooth side out seems to be the best way to go.
Nice tutorial, thanks!
Great tutorial!
Tltr: You MAY critically damage your kayak by using a heat DIRECTLY on the hull, or by heating the kydex while it is on/touching the kayak, if your kayak was made by a certain triple layer roto mold process.
One thing I'd like to mention, for other viewers: If you have an older kayak that was manufactured via roto-mold, do some research because some roto-molds, definitely triple layer roto-molds, can be severely damaged if heated directly with a heat gun, i.e. they don't have a flexible/adherent stage between cold & hard and soft & adherent. If overheated the spot turns to liquid and will leave a hole.
This project is still doable and applicable with triple layer roto-mold kayaks without heating the kayak itself. The kydex wouldn't be hot enough to damage the hull during the process of forming it to your reel's shape after the kydex has been heated, and the finished keel guard can be applied as shown here, or with silicone marine adhesive. Another reported difficulty with triple roto-molding is that adhesives don't stick to it. However, I have an Old Town Nantucket, manufactured using the Roto-Mold 3 process. Every kayak company gave the process their own unique name.
Thanks for the additional information! Very interesting stuff, I'm always game to learn more.
How's it holding up with the double sided tape? Very nice job.
A year later and its doing well. I need to re-calk one side of the front guard. The caulk mostly serves to keep sand and small rocks getting under the keel guard.
@@Backlashed thanks for the update.
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