Plastic kayak refinishing

[Scott]

Does anyone have any idea how to refinish a plastic Kayak, paint or otherwise?
Thnaks, Scott

[Summersdawn]

I recently read an article on refinishing a plastic dinghy (DIY maybe)- I will try to dig up the article, as they mentioned how to prep the plastic so the paint sticks...

[Mark.Wilme]

I used to paddle white water in the UK - most plastic kayaks these days are either linear or 'cross linked' polyethylene. They are going to be very tough to paint. It's going to be like painting King starboard or Tupperware.

If it's fiberglass however then normal painting applied, however they will get scratched up very, very easily.

[Jedediah]

I had good luck where I worked cleaning up the housing of our Bluefin Robotics AUV (had an ABS housing) simply by sanding. It seems that ABS oxidizes a small bit and changed the yellow to a browner yellow--wrong color for search and rescue in the ocean but I didn't chose it. I'm guessing that waxing after the sanding would have fixed the oxidization problem but it had bigger problems. I can't say I've seen this happen on anything other than ABS so good luck if its not that.

[Duncan]

I had some plastic paint from Varathane which I was surprised to see recommended for marine applications. It has held up very well in fresh water on my Snark, despite being applied straight over epoxy (no primer). The finish is very nice, too, it levelled right out.

[Summersdawn]

Sorry it took so long, I had trouble finding the right article.

The article came out in the Spring 2006 Boatworks, on page 62 - entitled "Refurbishing a Plastic Dinghy". I saved the magazine specifically for this article. I don't know how well it works, but I thought it might be worth trying some day.

The article starts off by the usual surface prep - degreaser and a lot of sanding. Tthey didn't specifically mention which degreaser they used, try some in an inconspicous spot first to make sure it won't react with the plastic. More than likely the plastic is polypropylene, which is resistant to almost everything.

He next applied a binder called "Bulldog Bond*Flex*Tie-Coat". This was applied with a brush (he didn't specify whether or not it was thinned, but mentioned phoning tech support and talking to a very helpful technician). This appears to be a binder used frequently in the autobody industry for getting paint to stick to plastic body panels.

The binder cured for 30 minutes, and then he proceeded to pime. He used "West Marine's house brand", but didn't specifically mention which type. I would assume after using the binder, you would probably have to use a single part primer/paint (just a guess on my part, I'm sure there tech support could provide a definitive answer).

If you try this system, let us know. I'm curious to see how well it works.

[Scott]

Thanks Rick. I'll see what more I can find out about this process and keep you posted.
Scott