use a 2 part urethane over 8 oz dacron

[skinit]

I am building my first sof and plan to use Jeff's 8 oz polyester, and was wondering if a 2 part urethane could be used to seal the skin and would this seal the fabric better and be stronger? Also since I am setting this up for a Hobie mirage drive I have (hole in bottom of boat) epoxyed okume panels to mount the drives and will epoxy the polyester to the bottom okume panels and around the mirage drive hole. Will I have any problems adhearing poly to the wooden bottom of the kayak?

Thanks for any advice that you can give,

Don

[Kudzu]

Hoping someone would chime in but I doubt anyone has done what you thinking. Adhearing the polyester should be no problem but always test it on some scraps first. I don't see how it could seal any better, most anything (paint, varnish, etc.) will make it water proof. Might be a little tougher but paint works just fine.

As for plywood... no idea!

[skinit]

I posted this question before I read the building of Longshot. I think that the skeg that you were working on is somewhat similar to what I am attempting to do. I now have two concerns on my plans, one the sealing and adhearing of the skin around the mirage drive hole. Tonight I ordered the poly from you and will do a test on the plywood when received. The second concern as you noted of the hard edge of the partial plywood bottom. I am planning on adding a piece of plywood at a slight angle in front of the hard edge to lessen the impact of the hard edge striking an underwater object.

It wasn't clear to me how you were going to seal the skin to the skeg housing, could you briefly describe your plan?

Thanks for your help,

Don

[Kudzu]

Basically I wanted to clamp the skin in place using a thin peice of plywood. I was thinking about cutting a mortise so that plywood woud fit in the mortise and be flush with the bottom. No high spots to catch on anything. I was working out the details as I went along when I ran into the problems.

am thinking to do the skeg I need a wide strip down the center and put the skeg in that. That was there is not sudden chance on the bottom of the boat. No place the skin can be lifted upward and the rock (or whatever) catch on the edge.

[bentg]

I have just used the 2 part urethane from the Skinboat School and I can testify that it is VERY tough. It saturates the cloth and reminds me a lot of a Hypalon boat. BUT, it is hard to work with. Follow the directions they have on their website exactly, as I didn't and mine turned out pretty lumpy/ugly. I've painted over it with Brightsides.

[Kudzu]

I have never used and I am not being critical of it. But I was just reading an interesting thread on another forum and several people were saying it had a very low resistance to UV/sunlight. Guys in Australia was saying that it was breaking down in 4 months of exposure. Sort of surprised me. So I would say if you use it, don't store the boat outside.

Jeff