Skin Welding

The largest organ in your body is your skin. It wraps around your skeleton in a seamless weave of cells that protect your inner organs. At Feathercraft, we wanted to replicate the same seamless characteristics in the design of our boats. Fabric welding technology has allowed us the opportunity to create an exterior skin that eliminates water seepage completely.

The outer skin of our kayaks is made of two parts: the deck and the hull. In the past, Feathercraft stitched the Cordura deck layer to the hull.

With the advancement of urethane fabrics, we are now able to weld our Duratek hull layer to a polytech deck layer, using radio frequency welding technology.

Radio frequency welding joins polyurethane fabrics by exciting the molecules and creating a permanent bond. This bond acts like a gasket creating a water-tight seal between the two fabrics.

The end result is an exterior skin that is completely waterproof. Pretty amazing eh?!?!

Exciting the Urethane Molecules 

(Like Dancing - Without the Awkwardness)

Feathercraft. Made in Canada. Paddled Worldwide.

The Stable Life

Sponsons, on a Feathercraft kayak, are the urethane compartments filled with air that give our boats stability. They also stretch the deck and hull fabric of our kayaks, providing a necessary tension between the aluminum frame and the exterior skin.

Like the top layer, the urethane components needed to create the sealed sponson chambers are welded together seamlessly.  

The sponsons of a Feathercraft can be blown-up with a few hard breaths; no additional hand or foot pump is needed.

For patching a sponson, use an Aquaseal adhesive with a Cotol accelerant.

If you plan on storing your Feathercraft kayak in its built format, always remember to release a portion of the air held in the sponsons. This is especially important if you are leaving your boat in the sun.

You can see the rounded sponson compartments on either side of the kayak, just above the foot pedals.

Feathercraft. Made in Canada. Paddled Worldwide.