Well now I'll talk about the outside seam
Firstly not all kayaks have outside seams,here in Australia many dont come standard with outside tape seams, but at the end of the day the inside one is the most important and will be the one which decides if your join is going to break or crack or not.
But personally as a manufacturer, having one makes a lot of sense as it can add strength to what is probably the weakest spot of your kayak,it will if done correctly seal off the join line were water could seep in and like rust on a car eat away at your glass work without you knowing and that's one reason the extra fiberglass tape helps and a bloody good one.
There are quite a few brands running around with so called tape seams that do nothing but add colour to the kayak--Why you ask?
Most manufacturers are trying as hard as they can to get the boat out the door and in the sacrifice to get them out quick, they rush jobs to get them done and the outside seam can chew the hours.
My kayaks take approx one and half days to complete per outside tape seam and its a lot of work to do
Others have theirs done is a few hours--how I hear you ask?
They can quickly and easily make it look like you have an outside seam but in reality its no more than a piece of synthetic tape that is used
I recently repaired a popular Nth American kayak sold "with an outside seam" and all they used was tape you find in your daughters hair to tie pony tails and I'm not joking ,it was so easy to rip once I had a piece off, that it just crumbled and that is a very popular way to do an outside seam.
They used no resin or fibreglass BUT worst of all they didn't even sand the area that they laid the tape down on !!
No wonder it snapped
If you cant see the tape,they are hiding their work and you have to ask why?
Its the often way!
When you buy a composite kayak make sure that when they say 'Yeah its has an outside tape seam " ...that it really does
From a manufacturers point of view that is
No comments:
Post a Comment