Hi All.

After reading Spidey's and the related posts about preperation sanding I thought that I would try to get some views on the rest of the finishing on a kayak.

Because I don't like "swirls" in my finish I tend to do most of my sanding by hand using a straight back and forth stroke. I use the ROS only for rough sanding of the fiberglassed surface.

Here are the steps that I use for finishing my yaks.

After filling any voids I fair a soft wood surface with an open coat Garnet in 80 grit and finish sanding "with the grain" followed by a vacuuming. I prefer 100 or 120 grit for the hard wood areas. I check to see that I have removed all the stains from the fillers and that there are no obvious cross grain scratches. A damp wipe is done to "raise the grain" and help looking for problems. After the wood is dry, I very lightly sand with fresh, sharp 100 grit just to remove the "fuzz" and vacuum the surface again.

I wipe the wood with a cleaner prior to applying a thin seal coat of resin with a roller. I go over the fresh resin with a heat gun to reduce it's viscosity [for better penetration] and causes the wood to out-gas in a controlled fashion. I break any bubbles and "close" the coat by "tipping" with a brush. I like to seal the wood before glassing because I feel that it gives me greater control over resin absorption and helps me wet out the very tight weave cloth that I have.

When the sealer coat has setup I go over the still "green" surface lightly with a carbide scraper to remove any bumps, lumps, drips, bugs or what ever.

I apply the resin with a roller, spread with a squeegee and "shape" the cloth around the bow and stern with a brush. I used to have some problems with air bubbles under the cloth in the sharp keel areas at the bow and stern where the bottom is quite vertical, the resin seems to drain away there. I prime these areas with a bit of thickened resin [under the cloth] and have not had bubbles since - this may not be an option if you plan to finish the hull "bright".

I fiberglass as usual. With regular weave cloth I wet down through the cloth. For my tight weave cloth I apply a coat of resin, lay on the cloth and finish the wetting down through as required.

I add a pigment to my fill coats [on surfaces to be painted later] and do a light scraping after each coat.

I let the epoxy cure for a week before sanding. To avoid heating/softening the epoxy and clogging the paper I rough sand using 80 grit on the ROS set to a medium speed and keep the ROS moving along at a good clip. For main sanding I prefer to WET sand by hand with 180 paper [which removes cured epoxy at a good rate] and finish with 220 grit. I use a light foam sanding block and a "mister" bottle to spray the surface.

My varnish coats are wet sanded after they are well cured. I use papers ranging from 320 up to 600 grit with the coarser grits used in the earlier coats and getting progressively finer in the last coats. Often I use 0000 steel wool because it "cuts" rather that "scratches" the surface.

On the next couple of yaks I want to experiment with buffing the final finish. I may try using a fast setting polyurethane spray over a varnish base to get a hi gloss finish - hopefully without dust and bugs ;-). The varnish would be the UV inhibitor and a base for the urethane which often has a compatibility problems with epoxy.

Anyway, my .02, this works for me. Comments?

Hank