: I put the first fill-the-weave coat on my deck glass on Tuesday night. I went
: to do some light scuff-sanding to see how many more, if any, fill coats
: were needed to fill the weave. I sanded down to the lowest level of epoxy
: and barely scuffed the glass (white spots of weave) so I think I'll let
: the deck cure so I can flip it over and start sanding on the hull. (I'm
: leaving the deck on the forms so I don't have to worry so much about
: warpage). Then, when the hull is about ready for glass, I'll pull of the
: deck, sand the inside quick, and glass the inside of the deck and outside
: of the hull in one evening.

: Anyhow, to get back to the subject of this post; I cut all of the pine strips
: for my deck out of one piece of 1x6-10' pine. I stripped the
: deck--everything matched beautifully. I sanded the boat with 80-grit in my
: ROS--everything matched beautifully. I did some final fairing with a
: 100-grit fairing board--everything matched beautifully. I wet out the
: glass on the boat--still matched beautifully. Then, after filling the
: weave, the natural beauty of the wood started to show through, and it
: looks like crap! Well, not that bad, but I was shooting for a high level
: of color coordination that I fell short of. Seems that pine has a natural
: grain direction. It has some degree of illuminescense (right word?) that
: changes as the viewer's angle with the light source changes. I can see
: where I flipped strips end-for-end to save wood. You can tell which strips
: were from which side of the original board. If you're shooting for
: near-perfection in a boat, keep all boards in the same order, from the
: original board, and don't flip strips over, or end-for-end.

: On the other hand, redwood doesn't have the same luminescense, so the redwood
: parts that were flipped every which way all match nicely and have a deep
: glow.

: Hmmph.

: Shawn

How very interesting. Do you think it also has to do w/ the angle of the vertical grain. Like is your grain slanted over slightly so the other strips grain slants the other way.

I wonder if it could set up some light polarization. I know that glasses or lenses can be set up to minimize polarization, but could sanding do it? Like say the next coat of varnish was only sanded in the long direction and then the one on top of that was v. v. slightly tinted and sanded randomly. Or say it was sanded only at 90 deg, and the last was also v v v slightly tinted and sanded randomly. Dumb idea, but what is oriented in lenses that polarize??

-mick