sanding inside for varnishing

83glt · Post by **83glt** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:18 am

HI all,
Just a quick question. I'm sanding the inside to prepare for varnishing. As I wanted to save weight and because my canoe will only see leisurely paddling on small lakes (no white water) I stopped after the wet-out coat on the inside (i.e. only one coat of epoxy). My hull has some undulation and after sanding the inside once with 100 grit there are still some low-lying shiny areas (though these areas have been scuffed up a little just not so much as to have removed the gloss entirely). My question is will the varnish adhere to these shinier areas or must I continue sanding until all the gloss is gone? As you can imagine, with only one coat of epoxy on the inside I'm a little tentative to be overly agressive with the sanding. I've searched the forum and found a few posts on this point, but I was hoping for a definitive answer. Thanks to all for your input.
Jason

Glen Smith · Post by **Glen Smith** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:49 am

Actually I would apply one more coat of epoxy. Just pour it in, spread with squeegee then remove the excess. The reason being that just one coat of epoxy will leave a surface that has several small pinholes and I wouldn't rely on the varnish to fill them all. When you are ready to varnish, just scuff sand the epoxy with 120 grit by hand and don't worry about the low, shiney spots.

83glt · Post by **83glt** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:35 pm

Thanks Glen. And I thought my epoxying was done! More practice for the next canoe I guess... I have read, however, that one coat of inside epoxy is an option. If one wanted to only have one epoxy coat on the inside, how would one go about doing that? Thanks again.

j

Glen Smith · Post by **Glen Smith** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:06 pm

One coat is possible if you did a precoat of the bare wood first. It also helps if you are using a lightweight cloth such as 4 ounce.

I just made a strip kayak seat backrest and applied 6 ounce glass over bare wood, no precoat. When I applied the second coat of epoxy I got a few air bubbles which indicates that there were some pinholes in the first coat.

You might be tempted to go easy on the squeegee on the first coat, leaving more epoxy to produce a thicker coat. However, if the first coat isn't squeegeed enough, you risk having the cloth floating in the epoxy. Judging how much pressure to apply to the squeegee to remove just the right amount of epoxy so that the cloth doesn't float and a second coat isn't required takes two things (IMHO) 1: experience. 2) luck.