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KBBS Archive 00,000
Re: wet wood is worse than wet glue
Posted By: Nick Schade
Date: Thursday, 6 August 1998, at 5:52 p.m.
Water enough in the wood to soften the glue is causing bigger problems than soft glue. It is also softening the wood. It can make the glass delaminate from the wood. Since the space between the glass does not dry easily the problem can be persistent. Waterlogged wood is not very strong.
I do not generally have problems with holes in the glass, but I typically double up (minimum of 2 layer of 4 oz) on the impact zones. I have scratched through the bottom layers of glass enough for water to penetrate. The damage from the initial scratch was enough to cut through 2 layers of 6 oz cloth, any weakness this damage caused far exceeded the resulting weakness of the softened glue (and I didn't notice any problem with the glue). The primary strength of the boat comes from the cloth. If that cloth has lost integrity, a little epoxy between the strips is of little consequence.
The failure of the cloth you describe sounds like the result of the initial scratch and less do to stepping on the damaged area, but I could be wrong. If you are consistently scratching through the cloth, bring a roll of duct tape along, you don't want water under the glass. The damage to the wood will be much worse than the failure of the carpenters glue. That could explain the 12oz pulling away from the strips.
I don't believe you are getting holes in the glass from landing on sand, your layup is better than that.
> Beore my reply - the first question anyone asks me about wooden
> kayaks is "How durable are they"?> As I explained previously, I have several boats constructed using
> yellow glue. When I damaged the glass (6oz plain cloth over 1/4"
> strips) on one, the glue softened at the rate of 1'/hour along the
> glue joint. I paddled several hours to finish my day. As I stepped
> out I stepped near the damaged section. The wet glue flexed and the
> exterior glass tore along the strip joint (not along the glass fibers
> but across them). The interior glass (12oz plain cloth) did not tear
> but did pull away from the strips either then or later.> The damage was along the bottom of the cockpit area so any flexing
> of the boat helped to soften the glue.> Is glass damage rare? Every boat I have ever built using 6oz
> glass has been damaged (the glass damaged enough to allow water to
> contact the wood) in mild conditions - landing on mostly sandy beachs
> in 6" swells.
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KBBS Archive 00,000 is maintained by Nick Schade - Guillemot Kayaks with WebBBS 5.12.
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