Smoothing inside

[Ed Houston]

:? Hi all wise wonderful and knowing list.

Got another dumb question I need advise on.

My initial sanding went very well and the inside looked nice and smooth, however when I wet out to raise the grain I found glue that I did not get off had masked the curve between some of my planks and made them appear smooth. The water made the glue soften so I used a scotch pad and removed as much of it as I could.

Now the problem, by running my finger nail at right angle to the planks I can feel slight ridges between some of the planks maybe a few thousanths of an inch, DO I NEED TO RE-SAND with the 80 grit? How smooth is smooth enough?

Thanks in anticipation of your advise.

Ed
(I think my arms will fall off before I finish sanding)

[Glen Smith]

If those ridges are glue lines, it is best to get rid of them or they may show under the epoxy. If it is just wood, of a few thousandths thick, it should come down easily with a bit of sanding. The smoother the surface, the less chance of bubbles and floating glass.

[Juneaudave]

Hummm...I think it depends on your level of perfection...and we all have different levels. On my first canoe, I used yellow cedar that tore everytime I tried to scrape it or plane it. My only real option was to sand it down without scraping. So on the inside, I used a ROS and handsanding to fair the hull. I sanded so much that I finally said enough is enough and moved on leaving some slight ridges between the planks (but it looked pretty good, I thought). Interestingly...when I fiberglassed and sanded the fiberglass..there was enough of a ridge between planks, that I exposed the glass in a number of places that I had to go back, reapply epoxy and re-fair the areas to meet my "level of perfection".

A couple of thoughts...on my current project, I used a Pro-prep scraper prior to sanding knock all those ridges down. I was able to do the sanding in a couple of hours after that. The scraping really saved time. If you did not scrape, go ahead and do that then re-sand.

If you elect ot not scrape, go ahead and resand to get rid of the ridges..

If you leave the ridges, put an extra coat of epoxy on to give you some leaway to make up the difference up in sanding the epoxy so you don't expose the fiberglass.

My guess is that if you are shooting for the "matt finish" described in Canoecraft where you don't completely fill the weave, you will not be able to do that with the ridges. Even though the ridges are small, they will be shiny where the remainder of the planks will be "matt."...Good luck...Juneaudave