In The Field Canoe Repair

[stripperguy]

Stripperguy !
I feel the pain of losing a canoe ! Maybe it ended up a canoe shelf or something.

Boy this thread is making me nervous !

Jim

Jim,

All of the guys (and gal) received these custom frames, each with a personally relevant photo. Every recipient has told me that the canoe remnant frame and photos are among their most valued possessions!!

 

[Odyssey]

I usually have some duct tape with me on trips, and lots of paracord to spare.( I replaced a broken grab handle once with laced cord.) I've never had any major failures. Yet. Replacement bolts and parts for seats are a good idea, I'll have to look into that.

 

[Mihun09]

Used to take a full fg repair kit, quart of polyester resin and hardener, sand paper, cloth and matt, stir sticks back when we tripped in an 18 foot SR duralite boat that had seen too much use. First trip with that boat a gunwale broke. Fixed that by glueing carved beaver lodge wood either side of the break. Back home replaced all the rails and ugly alum thwarts and such. boat got heavier but was still brittle (from 55 pounds to 72)

Following year, same boat, popped a rib off the bottom. Fixing that was as simple, just clean, sand, cloth and resin to hold it and other loose ones down. Mind you it had been raining for two days so it was a slow cure.

Same trip, different repair. A pack fell over on a portage and broke the carbon shaft on our spare paddle. Once in camp on Aiken's Lake got more beaver wood, carved to fit inside the shaft and glassed that back together. I figure some of you wonder why our only carbon paddle is the "spare", ha!

Changed boats the following year and ditched that repair kit, now just take duct tape.

 

[Guest]

But what do canoe trippers carry and use nowadays? Have you ever needed to make repairs on a canoe during a trip? Do you have a repair kit, and what's in it?

I carry an extensive “Spares and Repairs” kit on some trips, most often on outings that are long, remote or group endeavors. When I’m travelling that kit always comes along in the truck if not in the canoe.

The “Repairs” part of that kit includes a Mechanic’s Swiss Army knife and a small 3/8 – 7/16 wrench (it is hard to turn a machine screw and hold a nut with one tool), half of a hacksaw blade, some wire, some webbing and a Fastex buckle, needle & thread, cable ties, a length of spare rudder cable and swedges, a couple of nails, 2-part epoxy syringes & fiberglass, vinyl patch repair kit, high quality duct tape, machine screws/nuts/washers and a spare seat drop (drilled dowel type).

At a minimum, when I don’t carry that kit, I have the latter two items; with the machine screw through the drilled dowel with washer and nut threaded on and the dowel wrapped in duct tape, that last ditch mini-repair kit is the size of a cigar. I like the size and functionality of that mini-kit enough that I made a half dozen for friends.

I have never (knock wood) severely damaged a boat during a trip, but I have used the repair kit on several occasions.
Having a friend break a machine screw seat drop and, to his amazement, pulling out all of the replacement hardware needed.
Another friend cracked the bottom of an old glass canoe on a speedbump log. Dried off and duct tape patched on the shoreline.
More camp chairs than I can count repaired with a machine screw or a bent nail through the failed pop riveted leg connection. Knowing that prone to failure pivot point I drill out the flimsy rivet and replace it with a bolt on our chairs.
Fixed sleeping pad leaks with the vinyl patch kit, repaired straps on dry bags with the webbing and buckle, cable tie loops to replace busted zipper pulls, lots of crude sewing with the needle and thread and of course duct tape, duct tape, duct tape.

No point in carrying cheap duct tape. I carry a wrapping of 1 inch Gorilla tape and a wrapping of 2 inch Nashua 357.

That 357 is a vinyl impregnated heavy cloth waterproof tape with extreme temperature tolerances and is seriously tough and long lasting. It is also close to $30 a roll. And worth it.

The friend’s cracked glass canoe was only a couple of miles short of the take out, so we patched it with the 357 as a temporary fix. Or at least I thought it was a temp fix. Two years later it still wasn’t leaking and he was still paddling it that way.

 

[Jim Dodd]

Jim,

All of the guys (and gal) received these custom frames, each with a personally relevant photo. Every recipient has told me that the canoe remnant frame and photos are among their most valued possessions!!

Now that is cool ! I feel a little better.The healing begins .

Jim

 

[Rippy]

Duct tape, paracord, leatherman, axe, saw, brain (hope it works, I haven't used it in a while).

 

[Steve in Idaho]

No point in carrying cheap duct tape. I carry a wrapping of 1 inch Gorilla tape and a wrapping of 2 inch Nashua 357.

That 357 is a vinyl impregnated heavy cloth waterproof tape with extreme temperature tolerances and is seriously tough and long lasting. It is also close to $30 a roll. And worth it.

The friend’s cracked glass canoe was only a couple of miles short of the take out, so we patched it with the 357 as a temporary fix. Or at least I thought it was a temp fix. Two years later it still wasn’t leaking and he was still paddling it that way.

Another option, and maybe it's the same thing. EternaBond MicroSeal tape. I discovered it while looking for a way to repair vinyl tent fabric on a pop-up camper. It's used heavily in the RV field for permanent roof repairs. The roll I bought cost $40. Makes a flexible and (going on two years) permanent patch. Sticks to just about anything, even if wet. Haven't tried it on poly yet, but I'll bet it will stick to that too.

edit: Nope. I checked. It's not the same stuff.

 

[Yeoman]

I was on a river trip a few weeks ago and put some impressive cracks in a fiberglass canoe when it wrapped on a rock just after cutting it out of a sweeper.
I had Gorilla Duct Tape to keep it going till camp that night. I had a small fiberglass repair kit from MEC and was about to open it up but one of the others on the trip gave me half of a bar of J-B Weld Putty. Worked great filling the chips, holes and cracks in the keel. The sides of the canoe kept the Gorilla Tape. It's a product that's been added to my kit.