Hi Toni,

What's scary is that picture was taken before it was blocked and buffed. Now the finish is really sick... The first scratch is going to be painful for my customer! The coast of Spain is pretty rocky...

Yes, if I understand correctly, the Europe went completely over to waterborne finishes a few years ago. California will be doing so as well starting in 2009. The applicators are in an uproar. According to my experience, waterbornes are softer and more prone to scratching than the traditional solvent-based clears.

Like I said in the original post, I sprayed a fiberglassed panel for testing after it's cured for a few weeks. It'll be interesting to see how it compares with the other panels I made up: Epifane's Wood Finish Gloss Varnish, Interlux Perfection Varnish (2 component), clear polyester surfboard resin, and WR-LPU. I also have panels coated with graphite and hBN powders, Epifane Mono-Urethane and Perfection paints, and one panel with a few extra coats of straight epoxy. I think that's all of them... It'll be a neat comparison. As long as the automotive urethane is close in performance to Perfection Varnish, I'm going to have ALL my future boats sprayed professionally. There's no comparison as looks are concerned!

The DuPont urethane that was sprayed on is definite old-school stuff. The VOC's are quite high. My applicator talked directly with DuPont about it and it came very highly regarded. Several boat builders use it with excellent results. The DuPont rep said there was one better product, an industrial marine urethane, that would be bullet proof on a kayak. We didn't use it for this boat because it's supposed to be quite thick and isn't made to be leveled and buffed. We may try the industrial urethane on the next boat.

As always I'll keep you all posted...

Dan

: Hi,

: Beautiful finish.

: I also used automotive varnish with flex agent for my previous kayak. I also
: thought to use it for my next kayak. The varnishing in paint shop is not
: that expensive and the surface should be perfect.
: But - the stuff does have lower resistance for scratches and such. My kayak
: has some pretty nasty looking grooves in bottom, much more than those that
: have been varnished with marine 2-part polyurethane varnish. One paint
: shop person said the same - he told the automotive varnishes have greater
: gloss, but much lower abrasion resistance. So he didn't recommend it for a
: kayak.
: My kayak has also automotive paint in wooden surface under varnish. The
: scratches can easily be seen because the light wood shows through black
: paint. Shaded epoxy would have been great there as a "primer".

: I'm not sure if the lower resistance is a big problem - it's quite common to
: get scratches to varnish but fiberglass will stop them.

: One thing to remember is that the varnish will be softer for long time. It's
: called a "reflux" or something like that. If I understood
: correctly it can last longer time with automotive products. Or maybe it's
: the issue with new environmentally friendly stuff which is compulsory in
: EU. I guess it's not there yet though...

: Toni.