[zachschiada]

It has been a few months since I used my raft since it has been raining a lot and I have been using my hard boat. This past Saturday though, water was low so I was able to do some exploring with my packraft. I ended up hiking about a mile to my local lake’s spillway. I had to wade another quarter mile or so through the creek and under a neat tunnel under the railroad before I reached the deeper water at the spillway. Did a quick cliff jump and then headed downstream to the next bridge with a quick pack up of my raft into my backpack and walk back to my car. Was a bit more hiking than rafting, but so cool to have the portability of the packraft to do mini adventures like this. I look forward to more trips like this and am thankful that there is this affordable option to go on adventures most won’t be able to do.

[zachschiada]

I was initially thinking about trying to figure this out, but I was a little DIYed out and just bought one from MRS. Not sure how well it’ll work, but I’ll report back. I’ve found almost all of my leaks and fixed them but I’m still finding I need about 5-10 breaths per hour. If something like this ends up on the store, I bet it’d be pretty popular. Super cool that you designed this.

[zachschiada]

Ok, I ended up doing something that really hurt to do. I performed surgery on my raft. I made an incision and accessed the tubes, welding them back to the floor. I then applied seam sealer to avoid them lifting up. Since I cut into my mostly finished raft, I added a name tag and phone number contact like I do in all my whitewater boats. If it’s holding air tomorrow I still hope to test this out on the water, but I’ll do a last check for leaks/problems first.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by zachschiada.

[zachschiada]

I see now. It’s the floor separating from the tube fabric. I’ll try flipping it over tonight and ironing from the bottom up with parchment paper.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by zachschiada.
• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by zachschiada.

[zachschiada]

So I got a little carried away with seam sealer and started coating all of my seams with seam grip before fixing what should have been done with my iron when I inflated and found leaks. I read on here that I can go over sealed areas with my iron using parchment paper once it cures, but is that after the 8 days to fully cure or can I do so say 8-12 hours later? I think in retrospect, it would have been wiser to not touch the seam grip at all at this point, but I was excited and a bit foolish.

[zachschiada]

I think it can be fixed, but when pulling my floor back through the installed tube for 3R, I pulled too hard and ripped the floor about 1.5″ where there is a gap cut out for the space between 3R and 2R. I patched the teared area with spare fabric (floor fabric spare on topside, seat fabric spare below), but will this cause any problems structurally? I’m worried about when I put in the reinforcement strips.

[zachschiada]

I’m thinking about buying a Telkwa in the future once I get one of my 3 WW boats sold. I’m wondering if a cheap iron like this one on Amazon will work. I’m looking for one that can double up for plastic kayak repairs. If anyone thinks this wouldn’t work, I’ll just get one of the already recommended ones, but I was hoping for double duty.

 

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by zachschiada.

[zachschiada]

It was. Class 2 and nothing catastrophic. I did rip the hole that held my seat in place to the floor. Seat is fine, but I’ll need to rig something to hold it in place. Have a slow leak that I need to work on. I had added bail holes near the seat but need to add a lot more based on my water test. I posted one of my laps on the Facebook page. I’m no videographer but just put my phone in my pfd.

[zachschiada]

You maybe could add some sort of foam balls or something like that to inflate and then deflate so that they conform to your foot spot. I’ve got Jackson happy feet in my ww kayak with this. Most have mixed feelings about it, but I love the way it conforms to my feet in my kayak.

[zachschiada]

Thanks Matt. I’ll keep an eye on it and report back.

[zachschiada]

I tried today with the seam grip having set about 18 hours. It worked fine. I even tried directly on the seam grip without the parchment paper and it didn’t look too bad after, but I’d recommend with parchment paper over without since I just tried one small area and suspect there’d be some melting if I were to do it elsewhere. Definitely my preferred way of fixing leaks although it’s kind of a pain to pump it up so many times to find the leaks then deflate and iron, but I have a foot pump to make it quicker. I’m pretty glad t it’s not too late to do iron touch ups at this point.

[zachschiada]

I used this one and it has been great for small sections and I suspect it’s easier for things like the attachments, but after having completed the bulk of my telkwa (still diagnosing and fixing some leaks), I wouldn’t recommend it. The obvious reason is like you mentioned that it takes longer, but also, I found myself rewelding sections more than what I’m guessing is normal since the small shape just doesn’t cover enough area. Temperature wise though it was great. The only time I didn’t get a good weld due to temperature was when it got turned way down by I’m guessing my kids when it wasn’t in use. It heats up really fast, maybe 2-3 minutes.

[zachschiada]

Thanks Matt! Good to hear. It’s been a fun project so far, a good balance between building confidence and learning something new. I’ll update once I finish/test this thing out.

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