Ian, if you're reading this, you can have my Outer Island when I become a drooling invalid after applying AwlBrite Plus to it;-) (Ian has thrown up red flags at the subject of 2-part polys before. I do respect these chemicals and thank Ian for the warnings.) I have talked to a number of people, including someone at Noah's and the owner of a local kayak shop, and they say that when rolling/brushing on 2-part polys, all you need is good ventilation and a respirator. The woman I talked to at Noah's said that she had done this many times with no problems, and she didn't even use a respirator. I'll be going with my respirator anyway, since it filters isocyanates. And I'm not doing this in my apartment's living room -- a friend offered me his detached garage with nice rafters to hang the kayak from.

If you read the labels and Material Safety Data Sheets for 2-part polys, there are no extremely harsh warnings on them to warrant a full pressurized fresh-air suit for the one-time user. The MSDS's have many phrases such as 'prolonged exposure' and especially 'prolonged occupational exposure', not a better-suit-up-before-you-even-think-of-opening-a-can type of warning. I once painted a '73 VW Bug with 2-part poly while wearing a respirator in a make-shift garage/spray booth and had no problems. And in that case the paint was atomized, which is much more hazardous than the roll-on clearcoat I'll be putting on the kayak.

Noah's has a 1-part poly (a moisture-cure urethane) that behaves chemically like a 2-part, but uses exposure to moisture to react it, rather than a separate chemical catylist. I would have gone with this since no mixing is required, but they were out of stock for a few weeks and I wanted to get this thing done before a Memorial-weekend symposium. Instead I went with AwlBright, which is a clear variation of AwlGrip. Betsie Bay Kayaks uses white AwlGrip on the hulls of their production stitch-n-glue kayaks, and I've seen many of them at symposiums and they continue to look like new!

BTW -- cost of the AwlBrite was $108 for a quart kit -- a quart of the base plus 1/2 quart of activator and a little reducer, so it's really a 3-part. The Sikkens moisture-cure stuff was $45/500ml, if I remember correctly. The costs might seem high, but if I only have to do this once, it'll pay off over re-coats of varnish.

Dean