Hi Mike and Jay,

Mike your approach to a replaceable wear strip is wonderful. Especially with the use of Apitong for a wooden boat (keeps it in the family so to speak)

I've done somethnig similar to a glass boat I had been using a lot for long river trips. I first tried the ram cap idea such as those seen on whitewater kayaks and some canoes. Works pretty good for the most part. The cap itself was molded directly from the bow of the boat. I put on a layer of release tape first and then just cast in place the part in a very rough form. When the part had cured, I removed it and gave it some aesthetic sanding to make something that looked like it belonged there.

The new cap was then glued onto the boat with 3M 4200. It holds very well and is removable sometime in the future. Do not use 5200 for this process as it nearly imnpossible to get off the boat hull without some hard core grinding.

I've been thinking of a solution recently that is very much like your Apitong method except that the wear bumper would be built from UHMW plastic at both ends of the boat.

I will build up the bow and stern inside the hull with a glued -in chunk of ash about 1/2" thick. From the outside I will grind away enough glass and gelcoat to allow for the new bumper. Then a series of stainless threaded inserts will get epoxied into the ash/glass matrix with the threads now visible to the air.

The shaped bumper which is cut to follow the arc of the relief opening gets srewed down to the inserts with recessed Allen head screws.

Sort of skinning the same cat, here, in a slightly different manner.

What do you think?

Chris