Kevlar Hull

charlie foulds

Well-known member
I have decided to go with kevlar for my hull. I have a few questions for those who have done this. Do you overlap the keel and how much? Do you put glass tape over the edges as in a glass hull? Would you wrap the kevlar over the motorwell transom completely,to cover the interior of the bulkhead? If you must cover it completely with glass to get a smooth finnish any saving in weight would be lost? Any other tips or questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Charlie,

Kevlar on a boat like this will not save you any weight at all, that is not the purpose it is only for impact/abrasion resistance. Kevlar is only lighter than glass if you have very small amounts of resin to fabric (a high kevlar to resin ratio), you can get that without a lot of work like vaccum bagging. A plywood boat is not going to gain any benefit from a kevlar sheathing in terms of weight - best case senario you could save the weight of two boxes of shells or a gallon of gas - not worth it in a trailered boat.

Given that I think you like the idea of kevlar to save weight, I'd reccomend against it. It is a pain, fuzzes up and does not lay smooth like glass, is relatively hard to wet out and cuts hard. used a 5 ounce kevlar from Raka under 5 ounce glass, layed it up wet-on-wet. I am extremely happy with the combo, other than how relatively fragile the glass is compared to the kevlar.

If you want to proced with kevlar, here is what I did.

I don't think I overlaped the kevlar at the keel, but kept it 2" apart, I have a wide center strake (3").

I did not tape the edges fo the hull, withthe idea that two layers is two layers, be it glass tape and glass or kevlar and glass.

I did not bring the kevlar up the hull much beyone 8-10". The kevlar I used was not exactly great to work with and I would NOT try anything fancy with it like doing the inside of a well. You do't need abrasion resistance there, so why fight with it.

On the glass over kevlar, the glass protects the kevlar, which can't be sanded well. You aren't supposed to cut the glass with sandpaper, but everyone does. This isn't a big deal with glass, you just put a layer of epoxy over the cut strands. With kevlar, you have a fuzzy mess to deal with that is hard to get under control, especially with the epoxy isn't fully cured (takes a couple weeks to truely cure).
 
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Thanks Tod, From your pictures and location,we hunt the same waters(LI Sound) We know how the rocks can be. Kevlar sounds like a must for this area.
 
Charlie... if you haven't bought it yet, suggest you don't.

You are building a light boat... assuming you will put a couple of layers of normal fiberglass on the bottom, that should be plenty... even if/when you do run up on a rock.

As Tod says, Kevlar is a pain. I have never done it, but I do know others who have.

Nice work by the way.
 
Charlie,

I did use kevlar on my BBIII built 4 years ago. If I remember right I did overlap the keel by at least 2 inches and I did run it all the way up to the the way to the top of the gunwale, motor well, and sponsons. I really did not have much trouble, other than it took a couple coats of epoxy to fill the weave. I do agree that there is no weight savings by using kevlar. Hope this helps.
 
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