Ed,

Spidey is exactly right, my answer was a little incomplete.

On my first boat I used Poxy Shield epoxy by Glen-L. It is quite thick and I could watch it blush. The fill coats went on quite thick with few runs or sags. I would put on a fill coat on and then sanded most of it off. A lacquer thinner solvent wipe after sanding cut the sanding dust for the next coat. It didn't seeem to cut into the hard cured epoxy but I am sure it left a slight, even coat of the residue. A rag only picks up so much and the surface evaporates so quickly. And besides, lacquer thinner stinks something awful. I went to an ammonia/water wash because it cut the residue and I felt a running water rinse was more thorough.

I switched to Raka epoxy on my now almost completed second boat. It is MUCH thinner, wets out cloth much easier, doesn't trap bubbles as easily, has longer working time (the very fast Raka hardener has about the same working time) and is colorless (Poxy Shield looked like new motor oil). Raka is slow to blush especially with the slow hardener, but runs like crazy. To avoid scraping runs I masked the hull when glassing the deck. To avoid runs with the fill coats I put them on very thin with a roller then tipped out with a foam brush.

I sealed the wood late one evening and scraped off the hard fuzz and wetted out the cloth with slow hardener earliy the next morning. I then added three fill coats with fast hardener the same afternoon/evening. No sanding since all coats were on green epoxy. Since the fill coats were so thin I was not comfortable sanding until I had some build. I like to scrape off the highs the day after fillng with a cabinet then wait for a hard cure to sand. I think scraping its a little quicker and it gives me something to do while watching the epoxy cure. It was a good decision to have three fill coats before sanding because the total build was not very thick and it was still to easy to touch the cloth with the sander. A couple touch up coats of epoxy were still needed to to fair out the surface. The jury is still out I still have to varnish.

There are a lot of variables with this stuff and you have to find what works for you. Work with small batches, it takes me a half a dozen to wet the cloth on a deck.

It sounds like Spidey is an artist with this stuff. Its good to have his advise.