Reskin hypalon tubes - inflated

[ddks]

Hi all,

New to the forum but been reading many posts as i have been restoring a 1984 Zodiac Hurricane 440.

I am reaching the end of the full restore which included:

- removing the tubes and center console putting a new gel coat on the entire hull / boat. Redid the wiring etc.

- welded an aluminum transom plate integrated with the rear rack frame (just as a preventative strength improvement) and also changed the way the itow pole is braced (as it could interfer with lifting the motor & hydraulics), replaced also with a new 50HP yamaha & controls.

- cleaned the tubes madly following the various cleaning advice found on ribnet, many, many thanks!

- removed old patches and replaced with new fewer larger commercial grade hypalon (luckily the manufacturer of the boat is about 45 minutes away from me so all supplies are readily available (glue, hypalon, valves etc.).

Now before putting it all back together i have a question about reskinning the tubes.

I have a few meters of hypalon left over and am considering reskinning some of the upper more exposed sections of the tubes as preventative action.

My question is very simple. I would like to apply the reskin patches with the tubes inflated as it is much each get a nice smooth patch then wrestling with the deflated tubes (which is what i had to do with the old patch replacements). The tubes hold air beautifully and if i pressure them nicely i should still be able to apply a lot of force to ensure the mechanical bond of the glue. Does anyone disagree or should it be fine to reskin with tubes inflated?

Many thanks,
Dan

[Dave Cowell]

Inflated is the way we would do it at North West Ribs. We have done the full top half of tubes this way but it is more common to clad the rear portions or bow section as these seem to wear the most

[ddks]

Hi Dave, thanks and was just picking up some more hypalon glue from Zodiac Hurricane in Delta, BC, Canada and was able to catch the person in charge of the tube division there and he also agreed - he did recommend not fully inflating them but enough to have a nice round surface and able to apply pressure for for the honing.

[Boydo]

Dan, I clad the lower half of the aft 2+meters of my 590 some years back as there was considerable erosion and dings in the bottom of the tubes from being kept on the water and operated where I suspect there was a lot of woody debris (Canada Customs in Vancouver area). I've been happy with the result several years on but wish I had checked for pin hole leaks and plugged them before applying the doublers on inflated tubes. I ended up with some little bubbled spots up to 1 cm where there must have been tiny leaks. If I did it again I would try to inject a bit of adhesive into those spots with a small needle on a syringe until a soapy water test showed there was no leakage.

[ddks]

Thanks Boydo,

When i replaced old patches which did have small leaks with proper new patches i went to the full process of making sure there are absolutely no leaks - soapy water etc.

The tubes have been sitting for weeks now without any signs of deflating. Just need to wait for some better temperature to avoid the environment messing up the gluing process. I am simply intending to put a bunch of larger patches on the heavier wear & tear sections of the tube (and also improve some of the cosmetics in the same effort).

Thanks for the response, much appreciated!!
Dan