Canoe Ponderings by Red Rock Wilderness StoreCanoe Ponderings by Red Rock Wilderness Store
Is Epoxy Resin and are Souris River Canoes Illegal in the US?
Q.Hi Joe,
I stopped in to see you this last weekend about a used canoe and you permitted my wife and I to use one of your Quetico 17's. You gave us a lesson in how to paddle correctly and how to carry a canoe.
My response to that is "hah!!" That's a typical Brand X dealer response out of their exasperation.
SR's are built with epoxy resin that is manufactured in the US. In order to get across the border into the US, they have to pass US Customs and be properly imported into the US which involves a ton of paperwork, an import broker, and a whole bunch of guys with guns. Brand X sales staff tries to make it sound like, thru some magical means, Souris River is able to smuggle a 36 place canoe trailor across the US border (about 60 feet long and 13 feet high, 102" wide - not really sneak-able). And then, to top it all off, it says right on both sides of every Souris River Canoe that it is made with epoxy resin and kevlar. Pretty hard to hide that big decal, too. The implication here is that the signers of the Kyoto accord - Canada - is somehow manufacturing environmentally unfriendly canoes and sneaking them over the border. That would mean the Canadians, who are pretty snotty about how good they think they are environmentally (and how terrible they think Americans are with the same), are condoning the manufacture of a so-called "toxic" product in Canada just to ship it out and ruin the environment in the US. They also sell and use SR canoes in Canada as well.
Just look at it this way - the canoes are made with kevlar made by DuPont in the US, Epoxy resin-made in the US, plastic endcaps made in the US, and aluminum rivets made in the US. The gunwales are now made in Canada - used to come from Missouri. Also, if epoxy resin was so illegal in the US, why can anybody of any age can buy it in the grocery store, hardware store, boat yards, convenience stores, etc.? I also know for a fact that US based, General Electric (factories all over the US) uses tons of epoxy in many of their control boxes - those little black controllers that have a circuit board inside - so that in order to actually see the proprietary circuit board, one has try to separate the board from the glue. Not possible and the board is destroyed in the attempt.
Interestingly enough, two major canoe companies in Minnesota attempted to build epoxy resin canoes in 2003 using an infusion method and both failed miserably. One company's owner told our SR's sales rep at the Salt Lake Outdoor Retailer show that they were abandoning any and all attempts at using epoxy resin in the future. The other company made one epoxy resin canoe using an infusion process. The end product leaked and then they too, abandoned the process as well. I wonder how either of them were able to obtain the "illegal" resin to even attempt this process? Somehow I doubt that most Brand X sales staff would even disclose this tidbit to any of their potential customers. Honestly, I doubt most Brand X dealers are even aware of the back stories regarding their own products.
The absolute truth with epoxy is that when it is cured, it becomes a completely inert, harmless, and strong, crosslinked plastic the same as the competition's vinylester resin minus the terms "strong" and "crosslinked" . When it is wet and in it's two parts, the resin is water soluable and the hardener is the same as well. The hardener can cause contact dermatitus (dry cracked skin) and in some rare cases anaphylactic (sp?) shock (like a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting) that is treatable with epinephrin in the emergency room. In vinylester resin, the hardener used is organic peroxide which causes severe burns and is a possible carcinogenic. While you can't find vinylester resin on the consumer market, one of Minnesota's canoe builders advises using polyester resin which is a close relative molecularly to vinylester resin. I've worked with it and the overwhelming smell alone (melting styrofoam beer coolers) has to be toxic not to mention the toxicity of the actual resin. It has a strong chemical stench and is a pain to work with due to the fact that resin-to-hardener ratio is not as accurate as what is required with epoxy which results in dramatically variable cure times.
Also, Souris Rivers that have fried in the sun for 6-10 years can have the outside layer of fiberglass become exposed. This causes a fiberglass irritaion to exposed skin which itches just like rubbing your inner forearms in fiberglass insulation. A local Brand X dealer's staff have pointed that out claiming that the itchiness (from the fiberglass) is definitely a toxic reaction caused by the epoxy resin. Being an inferior outfit (my opinion), they don't actually know how SR's are constructed and they wouldn't know about the fiberglass outer layer that's on every Souris River Canoe. This itchy problem is easily solved by rolling on some epoxy resin and recoating the canoe. Incidentally, I just did this to two sun-fried SR's about 2 weeks ago and am still feeling quite fine. I'm thinking about calling Brand X to find out when it's going to get me.:-P One interesting point about Brand X kevlar canoe company is that they use vinylester resin that they thin out with liquid styrene (a carcinogen) to be able to wet out the kevlar that they buy from the canadian weaver J.B. Martin - who incidentally happens to be the kevlar weaver for Souris River as well. Ooops - they forgot those details as well.
It all boils down to "when one is selling an inferior product, one needs to make up lies about the superior product and hope that the customer will be too lazy or too scared to actually check it out." So, bravo for checking it out!
I can't believe how low some other dealers will go but we are used to it. They've been pulling this for years now because their canoes are junk by comparison and they know it.
Anyway, that's the "illegal product" discussion in a rather long email. Hope this helps.
Thanks!
Joe
Red Rock