: I have been watching these threads with interest. Wondering how
: this is going to work and what advantages, if any there are.
: That is not a negative comment either.

: I have settled on paint over polyester and as long as I used oil
: based paint I have been very happy with it. Never had a problem
: or even skinned one up enough to consider touching up the paint.
: I read this and want to try it then I come back around to what
: advantage do it give me? So I keep reading and watching so you
: guys keep testing and posting. :-) I am really curious about
: this.

Hi Jeff!

Warning, only halfway through my coffee ritual, liable to ramble and make no sense...

I've used Zar and Corey's Goop on nylon. (not at the same time.. ) Haven't had the opportunity to try polyester and paint yet, but I'm encouraged by your reports and by how nice your color looks.

What I'm looking for in terms of advantage is a coating that is readily available, relatively inexpensive, durable, easy to apply with control and a pleasing visual appearance. Zar and artists' oil paints satisfy the easy and good looking criteria, however, Zar specifically is not available around these parts that I can see.

On my Zar kayaks, I have issues with the coating cracking and peeling at the pressure points of heels and seat. This seems to occur about a year out from skinning.

Another possible disadvantage is that in my experience, the Zar coating is loud when water drops from the paddle hit the foredeck -- if I am motoring along it reminds me of rain on a tin roof, or the sprinkler hitting the side of the house. Scares off all the snipe I am hunting... but that is about it for the disadvantages of canned poly, as far as I can tell. I've hit the same logs and rocks with Zar skin as I have with Goop, so though I don't doubt Goop is maybe more durable, at my level of abuse I don't see either on top.

Corey's is good stuff, but it is, relative to canned polyurethane, a pain to mix and apply. Chance for error, chance to possibly have a bad batch. I have to set aside several hours to coat, and it requires a lot of attention during coating and babysitting drips. When all that is done, it's a pretty ugly coating in my humble opinion. Glossy, it can be thick (if my ham-fisted self applies it, maybe some do much better than I), and it turns a manky yellow color. Dye on the nylon helps the color obviously, but also lessens adhesion, from what I understand. Never tried to acid-dye a kayak. I've done Corey's twice, once on un-dyed, once I mixed artists' paint with it. Both those skins failed the aesthetic criteria, though the artist tinted Goop, having a burnt sienna base for the manky yellow that grows, is actually turning an acceptable browny-tan, whereas it began life the color of silly putty when it was freshly coated. Tinting Goop is really a "wash" effect, the particles of pigment are suspended and tend to color splotchy and weak.

I've noticed though, that nylon + Zar seems to go slack and wrinkly when wet much more readily than a Gooped skin. So a coating that cures more rigid and makes the skin stiffer, seems good for combating the raisin effect. I read a Brian Schulz comment, I believe, once that said something along the lines of "Nylon can be sewed on tight, and if you coat it with something decent, it might even stay tight."

So with that in mind, looking at something like PL Premium, it maybe has the cheap, available and durable criteria covered. Whether it's easy to apply on a whole kayak I don't know. Noel seems to have had at least some difficulty with it. When I smeared a bead of it across my ~10" sq scrap, I used a plastic spreader that was still covered in a bumpy edge of cured Corey Goop. So I basically left furrows in the PL, and it is thicker and thinner in spots. I think with a clean spreader, it'll be possible to get a very controlled smear going. Following contours, having the skin deflect away from the spreader, seams, etc may present more challenges.

I'm looking at it maybe as a way to laminate fabrics. I would not do a double 8- or 9-oz skin, I'd want even lighter nylon to start, and lay that over with a pretty outer fabric. I'd hope I could approach the look of a feathercraft skin. This may toss the easy to apply criteria right out the window... I'm looking hard at these qajaqs being made in Greenland, and they have some very innovative features, pockets, zippers on deck, dry bags integral to the deck, perfix fasteners etc. Very cool stuff. They are doing something with some kind of silicon treatment to the skin. Perhaps with something like PL on your side, maybe there is no sewing? I wonder about pre-coated, pre-dyed urethaned nylon.

It may just be that paint and poly is the perfect skin for home building. I really probably ought to try that before I keep trying to re-invent the wheel. Maybe nylon is just the wrong stuff to be using, maybe for all it's goodness, it is just too dang stretchy. But maybe a hard-curing adhesive takes away some of that stretchy... maybe a thin PL layer and then your Rustoleum. I'm really curious to see what happens to Noel! : )