Royalex canoe building

I am looking for information on building canoe's with ABS Royalex. In my search for information I have found hundreds of sites explaining the components of Royalex; a few with very general descriptions of the process, mould building, vacuum bagging, etc.; and none with anything I can use other than background info. I found one small picture of an oven and vacuum bagging operation. One person I contacted suggested I talk to a local company who builds Royalex canoes, but I cannot imagine a company within 500 miles would really appreciate the competition.

I am located in Missouri, within 100 miles of probably 20 rivers and 100 canoe rental companies. I would probably start out making canoes for the rentals (with royalex seconds slightly blemed), and eventually move into some retail. So there is a market, and I have a fair realization of some of the costs involved.

I am looking for a more detailed description of the process and equipment, vacuuming systems, oven's etc. Any help and information would be greatly appreciated and gladly accepted.

Thanks in advance,

Steve

 

You want to talk to the people who produce "ABS Royalex" rather than the users.

 

Second NAG's comment. Also, and don't interpret this as an indication that I know of what I speak. What's your budget for capital equipment? I've been in a facility that had a similar operation. They laid a flat sheet of plastic (IIRC the sheet was not of constant thickness, the areas to be subjected to the most alteration were thicker), on their very fancy female mold, which was drilled with about a bazzillion little holes, all of which were connected to the mother of all roughing pumps (high CFM, but also high base-pressure vacuum pump) and then hit the plastic with about a kazzillion watts of IR lamps and, at the appropriate time, opened the valve between all those tiny holes and the MOARP. Impressive, to say the least.

 

Thank you both for your reply's.

Uniroyal is the listed maker of Royalex. The problem is that if you look on the uniroyal site, there is no mention of the product anywhere. I am guessing that someone has bought royalex, but I don't know who yet.

Out of curiosity, what was the hull they were pulling in the system you saw?

As for budgets:

An oven, based on a little research on used equipment, is $20,000-$30,000 ball park estimate.

You can buy Royalex seconds slightly blemmed, from a company like Old Town Canoe, fairly cheap.

The Vacuum system is the part of the equation that has me completely lost.


The only picture I have found of the equipment is at http://www.novacraft.com/factory.htm

the second picture down.

It is my understanding that they heat the Royalex to 350, pull it from the oven, vacuum bag it and suck it to the female mold. It takes about 12 hours of cure time for the product to set back up and then be pulled from the mold.

I think you are correct and my only course of action is to find who actually owns Royalex now and talk to them.

Thanks again for your help and any other ideas you might have,

Steve

 

I had tried a search also. I guess the correct search is "Uniroyal Chemical." Hope they can help.


Uniroyal Chemical Company, Inc.
BENSON ROAD
MIDDLEBURY, CT 06749 +1 203 5732000

 

Thanks again NAG. After further research it would appear that Uniroyal sold the Royalite and Royalex product lines to Spartech corp. www.spartech.com . Uniroyal was then bought by Cromptons. I searched around for about an hour on the Cromptons site before somehow stumbling upon a link that stated that Spartech bought the rights to Royalite. After that it was fairly easy.

I appreciate the help.

S

 

Sorry, but I don't know if I'm at liberty to provide information re the boat or builder.

I used to have some good contacts re used vacuum equip suppliers, but after something over a year, and no company laptop, it will take me a bit to come up with any of them. One was located in NJ, and I actually purchased a big roughing pump from them. I'd know their name if you said it, LOL. While I have a lot of vacuum industry contacts, none are anywhere near Missouri.