>

> I am not a big fan of the idea of sealing the wood up with epoxy (assuming
> that is what you're talking about) and letting it cure. The second coat
> and glass will have a mechanical only bond to that first layer of epoxy,
> and I don't like that. I prefer the notion of putting the epoxy over bare
> wood and glass, and then spending the hours required to baby sit the whole
> thing while wet and keep working more epoxy in and off as needed. That way
> the mechanical bond is to the pores and cells of the wood with no multiple
> layers of epoxy. I believe this to be a much stronger way to build.
> Particularly for a non-expert epoxy worker. But I am not saying that as an
> absolute statement. This is just my opinion and thinking on the subject.

Thanks very much to both Nolan and Dean. And sorry for shifting Ross's thread.

My initial thoughts actually were to seal the wood first and let it cure as Nolan surmised. The reasoning being to stop any chance of outgassing to screw up the subsequent glassing - espec. as I'm not going to be too able to control the temp fluctuation - prob glass in the evening outside. But I hadn't really thought about the bonding variation if parts of the sealer were sanded through in the process and I completely forgot about the possibility of amine blush getting smeared around into adjacent raw wood areas and not noticing until the glassing screws up.

So I guess that if one decides to sealcoat and let cure, you must make sure it covers all the yak, wash all the amine blush off, sand all over to make sure of good mechanical bonding, and hope you don't sand thru to bare wood or you'll get slight finish variation. Sounds maybe a little awkward to successfully do. But I'm going to have lots of holes and gaps to cause bubbles and outgassing(temp). Maybe not an easy decision.

And is mechanical bonding of the glass to the sealcoat detrimental to the kayak strength or a design opportunity?

interesting

-mike