How To: Install Knee Pads (in your canoe)

What's going on guys this is Noah with Northern Scavenger and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to install knee pads. If you've ever kneeled in your canoe you probably know the importance of knee pads. Having a durable foam block will save your knees from getting banged up on the bottom of the boat as well as provide support and maneuverability when you're in the kneeling position and running white water. So before you get started you want to make sure you have all the supplies. You're going to want to have the knee pads, heavy duty contact cement, a paint brush, a little bowl to put your contact cement into, duct tape and a pencil. The first thing you're going to want to do is clean the areas where you're going to be applying your knee pads. Once that's done get duct tape and put them on the bottom of the knee pads. This will give you some flexibility on figuring out where exactly your knees feel comfortable on the bottom of the boat. You can then line it up if you feel so inclined. Once you figure out the exact spots where you want to have your knee pads, use a pencil and trace out the position. And because we just used duct tape we're able to just pop that right off and now we have an exact location of where we're going to be adding the contact cement. Simply paint the contact cement within your area that you traced out. Don't be shy you do not want this to come off so put a respectable layer on. Once you do the canoe head over to your knee pad and do the exact same on the bottom. With contact cement you're going to need contact cement on both surfaces to get a proper seal. Once that's done wait 15 to 20 minutes to let both surfaces dry. You can use this time to grab some b-roll and blow the seeds off a dandelion. So it's been about 15-20 minutes and you can see on the foam it's relatively dry. If I touch it it's not sticking to my fingers. I think that means it's good to go. Same goes for a canoe it's not too sticky to touch but you can tell that it's dry. So I'm going to go ahead and install these pads now and how I'm going to do that is you want to bend it and roll it on and that'll stop it from getting air bubbles in there and not installing properly. So I'm going to start from one end bend it and then roll it on like that. Oh yeah that's on. This is an important step so once the foam touches the canoe there's no turning back it will seal. So take your time and line it up properly. So there we go that's the front. Turns out I didn't get enough contact cement so I'm going to run to home hardware quickly come right back and get the back done. Oh it worked! So there you have it that's how you install knee pads into your canoe. Very straightforward. Biggest tip is make sure you have enough contact cement and other than that you will be set and ready to kneel in your canoe, hit some white water, go on long extended trips, or just spend some time on the local lake. Knee pads are a great addition to any canoe.