How to Repair Your Kayak or Canoe
Using the KC Welder Pro, you can create permanent repairs to your cracked kayak or cracked canoe including…
- Pelican® Canoe Repair
- Coleman® Canoe Repair
- Anadyr Kayak Repair
- Coleman Scanoe Repair Kit
- Dagger Kayak Repair
- Escape Captiva
- Field & Stream Kayaks and Canoes
- Harmony Kayak Repair
- Hobie Cat Club Wave
- Hobie Kayak Repair
- Laser Pico
- Liquid Logic Kayak Repair
- Mad River Kayak Repair
- Malibu Kayak
- Necky Kayak Repair
- Nomad Kayak Repair
- Ocean Kayak
- Old Town Canoe Repair
- Perception Kayak Repair
- Pyranha Kayak Repair
- Wavesport Kayak Repair
- Wilderness Kayak Repair
- Wind Rider Triamaran
How to Use the KC Welder Kayak Patch Kit
Quit making temporary repairs
You may have tried to use different methods to repair your kayak or canoe using some creative techniqes. Techniques like…
- Liquid Nails (it peels off quickly)
- Glue Gun (Doesn’t “burn in” well and quickly peels away)
- Rivet an aluminum plate and caulk the edge and hope that it holds. (Gets scraped off from the first rock you go over.)
- Sandwich a piece of rubber between an alumium plate and the kayak with rivets (or screws)
Those techniques you’ve tried must not have worked, or you wouldn’t be looking at this page now. The KC Welder Pro allows you to do permanent repairs.
Step-by-step Instructions
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Step 1
This is a typical crack that you might find on the bottom of a kayak. The first thing you need to do in any plastic repair is to clean the plastic. Use soap and water to remove any water soluble contaminants. Use a plastic cleaner like our Part Number 1000 – Super Prep Plastic Cleaner to remove any sovlent soluble contaminants. Super Prep Plastic Cleaner will remove contaminants that won’t come off easily with soap and water. Contaminants like grease, tar, sticker residue, etc. Realign the plastic if is has overlapped itself.
Step 2
To maximize the strength of the repair, it helps to embed some wire mesh into the plastic. It is similar to putting rebar in concrete. Cut some of the included wire mesh to span the crack about an inch on each side. On this particular repair, we had to fold the mesh because the crack was on a corner.
Step 3
Using the KC Welder, melt the wire mesh into the plastic. This is similar to putting rebar in concrete. It makes the repair a lot stronger. Sometimes, the mesh wants to “pop out” of the plastic before the plastic cools. If that happens, use a screwdriver or another tool to hold the mesh into the plastic until the plastic re-solidifies.
Step 4
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Here is what it will look like once the mesh has been melted into the plastic.
Step 5
Apply the filler rod by pre-melting one side of the rod.
Step 6
Flip the filler rod over so that the melted side is toward the plastic that you are working on.
Step 7
Cut the tip of the rod off by melting through it with the edge of the welder tip.
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Step 8
Spread the melted rod while pushing it through the mesh. You may need to apply an extra layer of rod after pushing it through the mesh. Get the plastic hot enough so that the new melted plastic melts together with the existing plastic.
Step 9
Continue applying plastic until the crack is repaired completely.
Finished
The repair is complete.
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