I have a carbon fiber seat and thwart that I’m going to use to make a yoke. I have fiberglass resin with the hardener and enough matching carbon fiber fabric for the project and am curious if anyone has any experience along this line.

The seat is from a Northstar canoe so I’m pretty sure it has a vinyl-ester outer layer(can’t remember). I haven’t thought much about my final design, but I know I’m going to have angled pieces flush with the seat frame piece. I will also want to wrap 2 pieces together on top of each other for extensions to get the length I need. And of course the parts will get a good sanding(? grit anyone).

I’m not worried about maximizing strength because it won’t have to support more than 25 or 26 pounds. The bulge visible on the seat frame is the reason that I have the opportunity. That and the incredibly good customer service at NorthStar-they had never had a piece fail like this.

It started to fail on a trip out of LIS N and supported me just fine I realized the problem. I can sit on it now, and that fail-point might provide some flex. I took it off at that time so it wouldn’t affect the gunwales. In that short trip across the lake it bent the bolts at about a 10 degree angle.

I know I could just spend the money for the right resin, but the point is function and the yoke won’t be visible to anyone but me 99% of the time. And if you looked at my last Kevlar repair, you’d recommend someone do the job for me anyway. I never checked, but my son was going to buy me a yoke for Christmas but he said it was hundreds of dollars.

Thanks, Fritty

No experience with Carbon fiber & resin, but I have thought about trying...so interested in what you do. What's your end-game yoke going to look like?

Related - what does that seat frame weigh? The thwart?

See you are in Prescott - I paddle just north of you in Afton.

Cheers.

sns: "No experience with Carbon fiber & resin, but I have thought about trying...so interested in what you do. What's your end-game yoke going to look like?


Related - what does that seat frame weigh? The thwart?


See you are in Prescott - I paddle just north of you in Afton.


Cheers."

I haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet. Probably going to cut one side of the seat out and go from there. I probably want to have it be 4ish inches wide at the gunwales.

I saw a couple threads mentioning your St. Croix paddles already. The seat weighs 17.5 ounces and the thwart is 5.7 ounces.

Just back from a paddle south to the Park but did not make it all the way down to your neck of the woods. Great evening for a paddle.

Will be very interested to see what you come up with. What boat did these come from? Must be a stealth-layup boat, as I know they won't sell those components to people who might want to retrofit their older canoes.

Any yoke at about 1 pound is a lightweight winner in my book. Most are 1.5# - 2+#... Yoke pads not included, of course.

fiberglass is a fabric, like carbon fiber, not a resin. Resins are polyester, vinylester or epoxy.

If vinylester was used for the parts you could use that or epoxy. Epoxy is probably the most user friendly choice. Polyester is just worthless compared to the other two.

It is not real clear about how you intend to use a broken seat and a thwart to make a portage yoke.