: Does anyone have guidance on effective, durable UV finishes? A friend who has
: built several boats indicated he was curious to try a water based
: polyurethane. Since I am getting close to that step, I thought I would
: inquire from the group.

: Thanks,
: Greg

There a lot of finishes out there and there is a lot of salesmanship involved in the claims and benefits to be had.

I struggled with finishes for years. Tried just about everything. Two parts, high UV blockers, I used a water based finish for a few years but it was awful.

The water-based finish was very thin and dried extremely fast, I mean brush strokes stood out! Sure you could apply four coats a day but so what, they looked bad. And since you didn't sand between coats it was very hard to tell the difference between where you just applied finish and where you missed a spot. I finally figured it out. I had to have 99% humidity and 70˚ temps. I wouldn't work during hot days. I had to pour buckets of water on my concrete floor until my shop windows fogged up, course my tools rusted. The coats where very thin and you had to sand to 320 to start.

After all that I finally found Z-Spar Captain's varnish. Not the hardest, has a yellow cast, but brushes beautifully right out of the can and makes a great finish, is easy to re-coat.

Salesmanship, so I tried their Flagship varnish, right, more UV protection, right! It doesn't brush as well as Captain's.

Now I don't dread finishing, I'm confident I'll have a great looking finish to make my work look its best.

That's my take, good luck!

Rob