Plasti Dip is known for its excellent waterproofing properties, as one of our customers recently discovered when he set about restoring a war-time collapsible kayak and used Plasti Dip in grey to coat the canvas.

Jack Ruffhead bought the wooden frame for the kayak a few years ago from a man who found it in his garage. This particular frame dates from some time from the 1930s to 1950s, but it’s very similar to ones used in the Second World War as both were designed by the same man.

1930s kayak frame

Here’s a bit more about this project in Jack’s words…

“The frame locks together inside the canvas skin, which is like a big canvas sock and is only held on the tension of the frame, making it very rigid.  I had to make the skin from scratch, which began with lots of research and with purchasing an old industrial sewing machine and learning to use it. I then measured the frame and drew up plans for the skin, which isn’t easy as the skin helps to hold the frame in shape and needs to be very tight, which is tricky to get right as the canvas stretches.”

1930s kayak frame with canvas

“I had one major upset when the frame ripped through the front of the skin, as it was just too small. Eventually, I got the skin made, but then came the difficult bit… waterproofing it. The canvas is naturally water-resistant but not enough for a kayak. That’s where Plasti Dip comes in. I ran over the whole thing with a 50/50 thinned mix before slowly adding more coats with increasingly less thinners.

This method worked brilliantly and I am now making the inflatable sponsons (tubes) that attach to the side, which will also be painted with Plasti Dip.”

handmade kayak waterproofed with plasti dip

Products used in this project

Jack used Plasti Dip grey and thinner for this project,

Plasti Dip - 2.5 litre Can

£62.99

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Thinners - 2.5 Litre

£49.00

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More information about using Plasti Dip for boats…

This is not actually the first time we’ve had a customer use Plasti Dip products to complete this kind of project, you can read how another of our customers used HCF, another Plasti Dip product, to waterproof his construction in this blog post

For a wider view of the many uses of Plasti Dip for nautical maintenance and projects, please see this post

Jack’s a winner!

Congratulations to Jack who is November’s winner of our £50 voucher. Every month we award a voucher to someone who sends us photos of videos of an interesting project that involves Plasti Dip. If you would like to enter your project please email social@plastidip.co.uk