Tin Canoe

Hey guys. My buddy got me into smallie fishing a local creek last summer, but his fiberglass canoe is pretty shot, so I picked up an old sportsman canoe off of my neighbor last year for $75. Its got plenty of dents and dings, but I figured I'd clean it up a bit, paint it, and make some removable seats I can hang from the sides (it has no seats right now). Been working on sealing up the keel and riveted areas on the sides, next will be paint. Would like to paint bottom portion of the canoe with some sort of rubberized bedliner to help take up some of the wear and tear. My question is would anyone advise against doing this? Somebody told me that it might cause weight issues, but I can't see that being a problem (seriously, how much can a gallon of it weight the canoe down). Only thing I can think it would affect is the speed. I imagine that the textured surface of the bedliner could create some drag as opposed to a smooth paint job. Any opinions??

You will get some drag, but at planning speeds it would have negligible effect.
Rubberized gallon/quart paint will definitely add weight, but I doubt it would be a tremendous amount. Probably about 10lbs at most, depending on how big your canoe is.
I used Duplicolor spray can bedliner paint on the front of my old boat for when I had to beach it. That worked very well and added very little weight.

Thanks for the reply. Finished sealing it up last night. Gonna give that a few days to dry and hopefully get started on painting it this weekend. Will have to see if I can find the bedliner in the spray can. Had planned on rolling it on, but the spray bombs sound much easier.

Are there any rocks in this river? If so, I don't think having a rubbery bottom on the boat is a slick idea, pun intended.

On my fly fishing pram, I use epoxy with powdered grahite mixed in.... It slides over rocks without a tendency to suddenly swap ends. My pram is plywood, but I've done the same thing on a tin Fish Rite drift boat and a glass Clackacraft drift boat, so I don't see why it wouldn't be workable on a canoe, other than adding some weight.

In fact, you can practically drag the boat across a parking lot and no one would ever know you did it.

T-C