Wayne (in line)

: I spritzed it well with a spray bottle, and then used an iron. I read that
: somewhere as a way to work with this fabric.

Interesting, I have wet down the cloth of the kayak and the canoe with a hose. (Each is covered with Dyson's basket weave balistic nylon. I believe that heating is useful for dacron but have not seen it recommended for nylon.

: It was in a garage, and above 50 degrees, up until last night, when it stayed
: out and I think the temp dropped to maybe 42 or so?

: Are you suspicious that insufficient curing was an issue?

Having waited for the prescribed 72 hours for water borne polyurethane to cure twice, I was excited to see that the elastomeric coating had no similar warning. (Well duh, once you paint it on a roof, how are you supposted to keep it out of the weather...) The can does say that it should not be painted near the end of a day when there might be dew.

So yes, low temperatures are known to slow down the curing of epoxy based paints... In the spring around Ohio, I have been warned many times not to paint anything outside if the temperature was not going to stay above 50 degrees for several days.

I will be very interested to hear how the project works over time... Please keep us informed.

It sounds like whereever you rubbed the tubes hard against something like concrete, the coating came off like a layer down to the cloth. That just means that it is acting like a rubberband... adhering to itself better than to the substrate of the cloth. Instead of abrading it is peeling.

The logical repair would be to take some sandpaper on those areas and bring up a little fuzz from the cloth and then repaint with the elastomeric coating. Then wait 3 days, keeping the boat in a warm place to let it cure well.

For future, I would advise against using an iron on nylon. It may cause the surface of the fibers to melt and become even slicker than they already are... by fusing them on the surface instead of being billions of little independent strands that may have a hope of having the coating soak into them individually.

I don't think it will be practical to remove the finish from the whole boat, unless it is just coming off in sheets. So it is a matter of repair and learn and if none of it works, then it was a bold experiment. Sorry ol man, sometimes it does come down to that in this kayak building craft. Good news is that the cloth only cost about 50 bucks and you probably spent 5-10 hours sewing... which was fun anyway...

I feel for you in your present pain... but there is much left to learn. Don't give up on the thing now.

Rick