> Careful with the stain, and try a test, perhaps on the inside of that
> little stern stem piece on the Coho, where it'll never be seen again once
> the boat is done. While there are concerns with using a stain compatible
> with epoxy, my warning is based strictly on your expressed desire for a
> more reddish, cedar like color. Epoxying changed the appearance of my Coho
> considerably. It went from that pale, barely perceptible pinkish color of
> the unfinished okoume, to a very attractive, much darker color. Very
> pretty in fact. I only know the basic 8 colors from a box of Crayolas, so
> its hard for me to describe the resulting color. Just wanted to forewarn -
> the color of the wood in those boxes bears absolutely no resemblance to
> what it will look like glassed and epoxied. So going out and buying a nice
> cedar colored stain might make the bare wood look cedarish, but will it
> still look that way after a coat of epoxy? If you stain a little piece,
> then put a thin coat of epoxy over it, you'll get a good idea what it will
> look like - then decide if you really want to stain the boats.

Thanks to everyone on their hints/suggestions. We'll stay away from oil based stains and stick to water based only. The wood we're starting with looks more red on one side and more blond on the other so we may be able to choose the color a bit. We are planning on making samples by staining bits of scrap wood and then glassing a bit of tape to them. Then we'll check the color through the glass and do a tare test. We'll also epoxy a bit of unstained wood to get an idea of the final unstained color.

The question is... Where do we get scrap wood? As I said, we have Osprey and Coho kits and they don't come with much scrap to speak of. If the testing were purely non-destructive, we could do a bit inside the hull or on the wood that will be used for deck reinforcement, but I'm not sure if we have any to spare...

Thanks for the great responses!

Later,

Tim and Louise.