Plastic Welder and some preventive maintenance

My Hobie Adventure is going on 12+ years old and was in need of some work.  Lots of beach launching and landing in sand and rocks, loading and unloading and banging around in the garage.

I stopped by Harbor Freight today and grabbed one of their plastic welders and some plastic rods.  Not a bad little tool, I have just used a soldering iron in the past but this was better.  The triangular iron needs a little care not to make grooves but with a light and flat touch worked great.  Luckily I had enough scrap yellow plastic from mods I didn’t need the blue/black/gray and clear repair rods so kept the color intact.  I will order some yellow rods to have on hand.

I spent an hour filling in deep scratches, chips and gouges.  Some were quite a bit deeper than I had noticed and was glad to get them filled in and smoothed out.  Its amazing how easily plastic kayaks are to repair.

I also checked and fixed/adjusted rudder lines, tightened pedals, and lubed everything.  Replaced my spare rudder pins on the hatch lids to have plenty of spares.

The welding kit came with some plastic half round sheets as repair material.  I used some Goop and glued them onto the keel for a bit of a keel guard.  Loading my kayak, I have to pivot on the keel to push onto the roof rack.  This will keep the wear to a minimum.

She is ready for another 12 years!

Thanks for the detailed repair report!    Mine is almost as old, and I recently dropped it a couple times loading it when too tired, caused some gauges I'd like to take care of.  Was going to try a spoon and a blowtorch, but a plastic welder sounds easy and if it's at HF i'm sure it's affordable. If you haven't replaced the rudder pin in a long time I would do it, as sand gets in there and scratches and weakens it.  But after swapping, it's very very smooooth which I like a lot.  Still keeping my old one as a secondary spare in case I need it, or someone else needs one.  I'm still amazed at how well all the hardware has held up on my AI, with little to no work on my part 

I did read these HF welders are prone to bend at the tip once hot. I didn’t have any issue but did not do any heavy welding, just touch up work.  I ended up drilling out the tip into the foot (but not through it), and inserted an old drill bit as an inner steel shaft.  No chance of it bending now!  I also rounded off the edges of the tip a bit.  You had to be careful not to melt grooves into the plastic but getting it off square. Should work and hold up a bit better.

I am thinking of getting an old bucket or some PVC, and heating and forming keel guards.  My goop protector has lasted for years, but could be better looking.  My keels are not too bad though as I always use a cart.