Re: Thanks

Posted by LeeG on Apr 14, 2005

http://johnrsweet.com/Fiberglass.html

It's not rocket science, the all around bombproof covering over 4mm okoume is 6oz glass. The surface hardness and strength to hold up against hard bashing on the bottom of the hull,,,or dragging kayaks across the coaming,,or flipping onto the deck,,or holding up against paddle shafts getting ground into the deck during entry on flat or rough water is 6oz. The hull gets more frequent abrasive wear but the deck can get the same point stresses in frequent rough use but without the abrasion.

4oz holds up just fine for all the paddle whacking and can tolerate to some degree the above concentrated impacts but there's a big difference between carefully launching, carefully dragging and smoothly entering a kayak with paddle shafts across the deck and doing it with force in rough water. Or poorly transporting the kayak where the deck gets the entire kayaks weight rested on a very small area like the edge of a roof rack. The weight/durability difference between 4oz and 6oz can be pretty much divided into regular use and "expedition" use. I've had a couple kayaks with 4oz decks and they held up fine for camping and instruction but they accumulated water staining dings primarily through transport and storage,,not really through paddling.

I haven't used 2oz but it's common in the A.Hawk kit and couldn't use much more resin than no glass.

In Response to: Re: Thanks by Wes on Apr 14, 2005

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