: Unless you are buffing out a finish any grit over 220 is a waste of effort
: when varnishing an epoxy coated boat surface.

: And unless your boat will never leave the walls of a museum, show room, or if
: the selling price is over a mill, it’s a BIG waste of effort to buff out a
: boat finish. Buffing out a finish is not something you learn on the first
: try.

: All the marine spar varnishes I’m familiar with (and I’ve used quite a few)
: suggest sanding ONLY up to 220 grit before application.

Hi Rob,

I printed out your response for reference material. My varnish does say to use 220 grit and that is what I used after the first 4 coats, and then I just had to experiment. My brush job wasn't the best but it will do for now and I do have lots of depth with 7 coats. I wish I could be around other strip boat builders to actually see them. Maybe next year. The only polishing I have done was on a large HI-Fi cabinet. It really looked good but was a lot of work.

I did some unusual polishing once. My company was displaying their product in an open house display for the public. I polished the ends of several steel bars to different grades of polish. I started out with 80 grit emery cloth and worked my way up to finer grits and each was put under a microscope to see the that the last bigger grit scatches were sanded out. Then I went through different polishing compounds and finially to a series of diamond grit compounds. The final polished bars had different polishes on them and the finist looked like a brilliant mirror and when observed under the microscope all you seen was the pores of the iron and no scratches.

John