: Redwood , due to it's resins, can delaminate with polyester resin /
: fiberglass, and did just that
: on my first stripper attempt (1972).

I have only one example to use as a reference. My original Expedition Single which I built in about 1994 has WR Cedar, pine and redwood strips used to create the deck pattern. I used System 3 Clear Coat as a seal coat and then other System 3 resin for wetting out the glass. Around 1998 it started to experience delamination in several areas. This delamination was glass separating from the wood showing as grayish, more opaque areas in the glass.

These gray areas were associated with the redwood strips. When I renovated the glass I started by peeling off the original glass. On the redwood it peeled up easily without damaging the wood, on the cedar and pine the glass remained well bonded to the wood and efforts to peel the glass off resulted in divots pulled out of the wood. While peeling the glass off I noticed a waxy smell given off in the process.

I do not have a complete explanation for the delamination. All I know for sure is it was restricted to the redwood. My speculation is that after the seal coat cured, some resin (the eventual source of the waxy smell) from the wood had accumulated on the surface. It is possible that I did not do a sufficiently good job cleaning off this gunk because I didn't know it was there. But that is just speculation, it could have been an interaction with the particular epoxies and the wood.

I know others have had good experience with redwood, myself included, but this one situation has lead me to believe that under certain unknown circumstances redwood can have problems. If I knew what caused the problem, I could avoid it by changing the process, but since I don't know I have chosen to avoid redwood.

Where people have used redwood successfully, it is a pretty good bet that their process will continue to work, but since don't know how my problem occurred I can't say it won't happen to anyone else.