Chuck,

I just finished two Arctic Terns so I think I can help some. I used 100 grit for the rough sanding and 150 thereafter with success. Exposed glass will not show up at all once the varnish has been applied. I did not use a finish layer of epoxy and everything came out fine. However, all surface irregularities like drips or large scratches will be very obvious once you get that glossy finish on the boat. Careful smoothing work now will save effort during varnishing and help guarantee a great finish.

Feathering the deck edge overlap can be done very well by wet sanding (by hand) with wet-or-dry paper using 150 and 220. In addition, I found wet sanding to work very well between varnish layers. I used 220 on the first coat and 320 thereafter. The surface is silky smooth. Too bad I didn't know about it when I varnished the first boat. The second one looks so much better. Varnishing turned out to be relatively hard to do well.

> I am sanding the hull of my Arctic Tern in preparation for the varnish
: coats, but the instruction manual is extremely vague with regards to the
: degree it should be done. As a newbie, I didn't catch several drips that
: formed when glassing the deck to the hull, and I want to feather the
: 1"overlap of the deck glass smoothly into the hull. At this stage, I
: have sanded about half the hull with 150 grit on my ROS, and in several
: spots I have just barely touched the uppermost parts of the underlying
: glass cloth.

> Should I put a "finish coat" of epoxy on after sanding, to
: ensure all hints of the cloth underlay are covered, or does it matter? As
: for prep sanding _I can't imagine using anything coarser than 150 grit,
: yet I read people on this board using 100 grit all the time....