Repairing a Royalex canoe- Advice and Repair

[Gamblore]

Hey fellas, I borrowed my wife's uncle's Royalex canoe and it took some damage. He's pretty choked about it and would like it fixed. The hull is pretty scratched and it has some gouges in it. I was wondering if there is any guides or best practices to repair the hull and restore its appearance.



Thanks

 

[Alan Gage]

What kind of condition was it in when you got it and what damage do you want to fix? How did the damage occur? How perfect do you want it to be and how much time do you want to spend getting it there?

Alan

 

[Gamblore]

Hey Alan, we damaged it dragging it over some rocks during a portage. It was floating but it was fully loaded and we didn't lift it high enough. We should have unloaded it and carried it. Doesn't have to be perfect. Would like to maybe fill the gouges and paint it, but doesn't need to be pristine. It wasn't in great shape when we got it but it wasn't scratched and gouged like it is now.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Gamblore, welcome to site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos, and to start threads, in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Also, please add your location to the Account Details page in your profile, which will cause it to show under your avatar, as this is a geographic sport. Many of the site's technical features are explained in Features: Help and How-To Running Thread. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

As you may know, Royalex is a five-layer plastic sandwich. Starting from the outside: vinyl (which has the color, red in your case), a thin layer of ABS (often black or green), Royalex foam (usually whitish), thin ABS, interior vinyl.

If the scratches and gouges are only in the outer vinyl and don't penetrate to the underlying ABS layers, most people just ignore them as normal wear and tear.

If the scratches penetrate to the ABS, which you can usually tell because the color will change from the outside vinyl color, folks will fill the damage with either (1) epoxy, (2) epoxy thickened with some sort of silica, or (3) epoxy plus a fiberglass patch—depending on how deep and extensive the damage is. The details on how to do this can be found in many threads on this site using the search function.

That canoe seems old and I doubt all those scratches accumulated from your one recent trip. There seem to be white areas near the stems, which is common in well-used canoes and indicates damage down to the ABS foam layer. An application of Dynel or S-glass skid plates is the usual fix for this kind of stem damage. There are several threads about applying skid plates here, too.

Painting the entire hull can make it look better after repairs, but paint eventually scratches off. There are threads on this site that discuss painting Royalex.

Other folks hopefully will chime in with more opinions and details.

 

[Gamblore]

Awesome. Thanks Glenn. Appreciate the advice

 

[ppine]

I lent a friend of mine a Royalex Bell canoe. The hull was like new and I could anticipate some scratches on the hull on our proposed route. I finally agreed to rent it to him for about half the price of the rental my other friend brought on the trip. It was a way to maintain our close friendship. I did not mind the scratches so much after getting a check for them. When dealing with family think long range.

I don't think you can really repair the damage. Maybe you should consider paying him something for the way you treated his canoe.

 

[Gamblore]

Hey ppine. I've been looking at youtube videos and other forum threads. Can you not just roll the hull with epoxy to fill the cracks? That G-Flex material? Then maybe paint the whole hull? Just wondering where to get started. Thanks

 

[Gamma1214]

Welcome to the site Chris. I've never repaired Royalex but my understanding is the G-flex will bond well to just about anything "canoe". I would think that you could thicken it with microballoons, roll or squeegee the entire hull, sand it smooth & paint it without any issues. Maybe throw on a couple of skid plates for the stems as a bonus and paint it. You might be able to get away with a less expensive, 2 part epoxy in place of the G-flex if the hull is pretty stiff.

As Glenn speculated, I'd be surprised if all that damage was from one trip but family will be family forever and it's often best to keep the peace. With that in mind, it might not hurt to touch base with the owner to see what his expectations are for repairs and to be sure that he's OK with the game plan.

Best of luck with repairs (both canoe & familial) and it might be helpful to others to post a thread detailing the canoe portion.

 

[Rippy]

If you plan on canoeing in the future maybe offer to buy it from him.

 

[Gamblore]

Yeah I could ask. He didn't even tell me about the damage though, his daughter back channeled it to me. Technically I'm not even supposed to know he's pissed. Thanks boys

 

[Gamblore]

If I were to buy G-Flex, how much do you guys think I would need based on the picture? Just one container of it or more? Do you guys think I could get away with the 105? My Uncle never uses the canoe, this is a purely aesthetic repair.

 

[ppine]

Royalex is not easy to repair. Adding epoxy or g-flex would add a lot of weight. Those boats are heavy to begin with.

 

[Gamma1214]

If he never uses it, I'd tell him how much I liked it and ask if he's willing to sell. Then, maybe, a skid plate or two on the stems & let the rest go.

 

[MrPoling]

I don't think you can really repair the damage. Maybe you should consider paying him something for the way you treated his canoe.

100% agree with this. Royalex can be repaired so the canoe is usable, but it's never going to look like it used to.

If he never uses it, I'd tell him how much I liked it and ask if he's willing to sell. Then, maybe, a skid plate or two on the stems & let the rest go.

I think this is good advice on both counts. You can't really restore it, but skid plates might be a good gesture.

 

[mweekes]

Hello. I am new to your forum but it looks like you have the perfect discussion going on for me. I recently purchased a Bell Chestnut Prospector 16 from a older gentleman who never used it. Well I bought it to use it and after several trips I finally got smacked around in a pretty gnarly rapid. I ended up with a significant amount of damage and I am looking for advice on the best way to repair it. The canoe is made of Royalex. Here are some pictures of the damage. There are several cracks on the inside that look like they were only stopped by the final exterior later. The bow is pushed in creating a large dent and a large crack on the inside. There are several cracks on the inside that look like stress fractures and then there are those nasty wrinkles where it got hung up on a rock. I also need to replace the deck on the stern if anyone knows where I can find one.
I bought this for whitewater trips so I expected it to get worked over some which it has I just am looking for some help in keeping it in as good of repair as possible. I am also looking for some good skid plates. Oh one other thing, what's the best way to add floatation to this canoe

 

[Gamma1214]

Yee-Haw, looks like you found some gnarly water! Are the 2nd & 3rd pictures both of the stem that was damaged (4th & 7th pics)? Unless the hull is soft around the damaged area in the 1st & 6th pics, I don't think I'd worry too much about them & I certainly wouldn't worry about the scratches in the last pic.

Best way IMO to add floatation is with bags. If you're running serious WW, get bags large enough to fill any areas that you don't need for people or gear.

Welcome to the site and, by all means, keep us in the loop as to repair progress, success and (hopefully not many) false starts. You never know when someone may bang one up the same way (or even worse)

 

[ppine]

Offer to buy it or at least compensate him.
You should have known that he would be pissed off by how you handled his boat.

 

[Gamma1214]

Yesterday's post was a new guy. mweekes reopened an old thread and says at the beginning that he bought this boat. Probably should have started a new thread that (maybe) referred back to the old (whose OP hasn't been around since the last post above) but that might be tough for a forum newbie. (most online forums have an "old guard" of pompous know-it-alls that seems to be missing here but someone new to the forum is unlikely to know that.) And, of course, Glenn can move it if he likes... Anyway...

I'm curious if there's a way to pull / push that stem back into shape. (also a little curious how much impact it takes to do that in the first place but that may be another story)

 

[stevet]

Last Royalex I had was an Old Town Otter…built like a tank. I can’t even imagine what it would take to dent the front stem like that!! Maybe an NFL defensive lineman with a sledge hammer and bad attitude?

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Hello. I am new to your forum but it looks like you have the perfect discussion going on for me. I recently purchased a Bell Chestnut Prospector 16 from a older gentleman who never used it. Well I bought it to use it and after several trips I finally got smacked around in a pretty gnarly rapid. I ended up with a significant amount of damage and I am looking for advice on the best way to repair it. The canoe is made of Royalex. Here are some pictures of the damage. There are several cracks on the inside that look like they were only stopped by the final exterior later. The bow is pushed in creating a large dent and a large crack on the inside. There are several cracks on the inside that look like stress fractures and then there are those nasty wrinkles where it got hung up on a rock. I also need to replace the deck on the stern if anyone knows where I can find one.
I bought this for whitewater trips so I expected it to get worked over some which it has I just am looking for some help in keeping it in as good of repair as possible. I am also looking for some good skid plates. Oh one other thing, what's the best way to add floatation to this canoe

I think if it is well above the waterline I would not try to pull that dent out. I might give it a fiberglass patch over the crack on the inside, but only if it looks like the abs layer is showing signs of cracking. Not sure, but it doesn't look like the outside is cracking, and if it that's the case I would leave that alone.

Unless there's more serious damage to the deck than you've shown, I wouldn't bother doing anything with it either. But you can buy sheets of kydex online and fashion your own deck with tin snips, heat gun, and pop rivets. Unless that exposed abs above the dent is cracked and requires a patch, just paint over that and go paddle more whitewater.