Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
By:Ken Finger
Date: 10/18/2001, 7:35 am
In Response To: Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage? (mike allen --->)

: very interesting

: so like you say, the plan would be to get whatever polyester cloth you want
: BEFORE the manufacturing process that heat shrinks, even if the fabric is
: not the greatest looking. By rights it should even be less expensive!

No, it would be much more expensive. Law of supply and demand - we are creating a demand, and right now there is no supply. And we require a "change" to the manufacturing process, and change is always expensive - a human would have to remove the fabric from the automated process to skip the heat treating process. Also, we don't have enough of a demand. Imagine the volume of fabric they manufacture in a day. How do you think they will react when you ask for 12 yards of fabric?

: but if you could get a heat shrinkable glue,(is 1 or 2 glue coats of urethane
: shrinkable?)would doubling or tripling of 3.7oz in particular places work,
: i wonder?

I got out the test panels last night and gave it a try. Urethane does not heat shrink, nor will fabric coated with urethane. The good news is that urethane (20 hours after it was applied) is not affected by the heat at all. So you can apply a layer of fabric, shrink it, coat it with urethane, apply the second layer of fabric, shrink that, and then complete the coats of urethane. That seems to work well. That's probably what I will do if I put a hole in the hull of my boat. Yeah, if I did that now during initial construction the boat would probably never get a hole in it, but then I would never find out how much abuse a single layer of this stuff can take.

Messages In This Thread

How tough are skin on frame boats?
Dale Cooper -- 10/14/2001, 7:40 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Charles D. Haynes -- 10/15/2001, 10:57 pm
thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
mike allen ---> -- 10/16/2001, 5:47 pm
Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
Brian Nystrom -- 10/17/2001, 11:57 am
Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
mike allen ---> -- 10/17/2001, 1:11 pm
Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
Ken Finger -- 10/18/2001, 7:35 am
Re: thin/thick polyester & ht shrinkage?
Ken Finger -- 10/17/2001, 8:06 am
Thanks: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Dale Cooper -- 10/15/2001, 5:48 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Brian Nystrom -- 10/15/2001, 12:52 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Paul MacIntyre -- 10/15/2001, 8:45 am
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Richard Boyle -- 10/15/2001, 10:42 am
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Richard Boyle -- 10/17/2001, 3:30 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
West -- 10/18/2001, 2:35 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Brian Nystrom -- 10/18/2001, 12:38 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Paul MacIntyre -- 10/15/2001, 8:25 pm
Polyester
Brian Nystrom -- 10/15/2001, 12:48 pm
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Wayne -- 10/15/2001, 9:22 am
Re: How tough are skin on frame boats?
Paul MacIntyre -- 10/15/2001, 8:13 pm
Re: SOF's can be very tough
Roger Nuffer -- 10/15/2001, 2:05 am
Re: Depends on Materials used
Rehd -- 10/14/2001, 8:02 pm