If your're done glassing & just want to do final sanding in preparation for varnishing, why not wait till you're ready to varnish? Go ahead & paddle!!! You'll just end up scrathcing the boat & have to sand again anyway! Just a thought! I'm in the sme position! I've been paddling mine for a while & still need to do final pre-varnsih sanding.

: OK, pufff! We're almost there, my wife and I installed the rear bulkheads
: this weekend, installed seat and footpeg, cut hatches covers,..., lost
: count of all the things we did (in case you dn't know it, my wife and I
: are building two Arctic Terns, a 17 and a 14 feet version).

: We anticipate finishing installing the front bulkhead and mounting the
: hatches this week, and hopefully do a launch test on Sunday :-)

: However, before the launch we'd like to do a final sanding of both kayaks
: (they're no wood boats anymore :-) since there're epoxy runs in the hull,
: and that's the point of my e-mail. How can we sand the kayaks such that
: they will look sort of nice (without white sanding marks), meaning, the
: wook will look nice under the epoxy? I'm planning to sand first with sand
: paper 100 and then jump to 250 (using a ROS). Will this look OK ? I don't
: expect to varnish the boats until 3/4 weeks from now (to hot to varnish).

: I'll appreciate any tips, this are our first boats, and don't want to ruin
: the result of several months of work.

: Thanks in advance,

: Hugo