Canoe Building Materials
You want to buy a canoe and you’ve probably, by now, figured out what size and shape of canoe would be best for your needs. Don’t forget there are different types of materials canoes are made from! Canoes come in aluminum, wood, and fiberglass models, which is enough to confuse anyone about the best choice. But, with a bit of patience and the right information, you can figure out what material is the best choice for you.
In general, there are seven types of materials used to manufacture canoes: Wood, aluminum, fiberglass, Kevlar, carbon, polyethylene, and Royalex. Each different material has its pros and cons and you need to know a bit about each to make the right choice.
Wood is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing of all the materials, but it has habitually been the least durable. However, modern-day canoe builders using wood to craft their boats have access to scores of things that didn’t exist even twenty years ago. Water-tight epoxy coatings, varnishes, and modern production methods have made today’s canoes faster, lighter, and more durable then ever before.
Aluminum is a tough, durable material that’s low maintenance. Aluminum canoes are generally low in cost, and they’re the only kind of canoe that you can leave out all winter and not worry about degradation. The downsides of these types of canoes are that aluminum is a heavy material, and the soft metal tends to stick on rocks. Still, if you want a low-cost, low-maintenance canoe, aluminum is the best choice.
Fiberglass canoes are perhaps the most common canoes on the market, but buyers beware: Fiberglass quality can range from very well to very, very poor, and the unfortunate thing is that you can’t always tell the quality simply by the cost. A good fiberglass canoe is made by laying strips of fiberglass cloth into a mold saturated with resin. Poor-quality fiberglass canoes are made using small, independent pieces of fiberglass called “chopped fiber” in place of the stronger, more-expensive fiberglass cloth. Fiberglass is very lightweight, which can be useful for fishermen and paddlers.
Kevlar is rapidly becoming one of the most popular choices for canoes for two reasons: Strength and weight. Kevlar can be used to make a very lightweight canoe that’s as strong as steel on a strength-per-weight ratio. Such canoes tend to be made for flat water, such as lakes, and shouldn’t be used in rapids or whitewater. Also, Kevlar tends to be rather expensive.
Carbon is the latest advancement in the world of canoeing and is bonded with Kevlar to create canoe material. Carbon is lighter, stiffer, and less flexible than Kevlar is which allows it to keep its shape better then other materials (lightweight canoes tend to bend and flex). While lighter than Kevlar, carbon isn’t quite as durable, but it’s a good material to choose when weight without sacrificing too much in the way of strength is factors of your choice.
Polyethylene is extremely tough, but not very rigid. Manufacturers have overcome the stiffness problem in different ways. Some companies brace their canoe interior with aluminum tubes and struts, which makes for a heavy, clunky, but still acceptable, cottage canoe. Other companies continue to produce canoes from single-layer polyethylene by adding a keel in a largely unsuccessful attempt to stiffen. Single-layer poly canoe hulls tend to “oil-can” and lose shape quickly when paddled. The most successful solution is a patented “sandwich approach”: A thick foam core is sandwiched between an outer and inner layer of polyethylene to provide stiffness at moderate cost. Polyethylene canoes slide off submerged rocks and pop into shape better than aluminum canoes. People requiring toughness or serious whitewater paddlers often choose a quality polyethylene canoe.
Royalex canoes are manufactured in a similar fashion to a quality polyethylene canoe, and they use the “sandwich method”. For Royalex canoes, a form core is sandwiched first by thin; multiple layers of ABS substrate for stiffness, and then finished by adding a vinyl inner and outer skin. Royalex canoes weigh less, are more expensive, but are not as strong as a polyethylene canoe, though still very difficult to damage. Serious whitewater paddlers requiring a canoe that is lighter than Polyethylene often choose Royalex. Royalite is simply a thinner, lighter, more fragile version of Royalex.
By Sports Info Editor
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