A thoght occured to me. If one were to heat up the wood immediately befor applying the first epoxy (whether seal coat or not), as the wood cools it should draw the liquid epoxy into its pores. This would impregnate the wood to a greater extent, which may give too much weight for the added strength.

Comments?

> To add to the confusion, I like to use a very open weave cloth.
> I did a few experiments when I first started working with epoxy and
> glass. When I tested fine weave cloth (like pantyhose material) I
> would easily tear off test panels where the normal weave cloth was
> tough. I think two things are at play here. 1. The open weave cloth
> allows epoxy to penitrate more easily through the cloth into the wood.
> 2 the more open weave cloth allows for a better bite of the hardened
> epoxy to the cloth.

> If you stretch some cloth across a frame you can easily see how
> much epoxy comes through the cloth on a wet out. As I said above,
> I don't just want to wet out the cloth, I want to also wet out the
> wood. This is why I believe in laying on the epoxy and squeeging of
> the extra later and bring the cloth down close to the wood contact
> ...after the wood soaks all it will take.

> If you really want to go nuts with this, you could do a few test
> panels with both prior wetting of the wood and wetting the cloth at
> one shot. I believe so much of this has to do with the cloth and epoxy
> viscosity and not starving the wood. Also, I no longer sand with anything
> finer than 100 grit paper.

> As far as Sys III's book. With all due respect, they're chemist
> who conduct some testing. Once they build 40 strip built boats and
> have years to watch how they hold up, they will have to share findings
> with the people who have done exactly that. Epoxy is not the only
> thing affecting all of this.