I learned a lesson the hard way this weekend. After sanding out the inside of my hull I put on a seal coat of epoxy to prep for the glassing. I used a scraper squeegee thing instead of a roller like I did for the outside hull and deck. I had it in my head to keep it thin just to seal the wood so I poured and spread quickly and thinly from the center out and up. By the time I got to the end I looked back at my work and saw the zebra effect of the epoxy soaking in to the wood. Doh! I immediately applied another coat around the cockpit area hoping to reduce the effect there. It helped but didn't eliminate it. I didn't bother trying to fix the rest because it's going to be enclosed anyway and the epoxy had started to thicken enough were more wasn't going to help much anyway.

So I learned the key is to apply enough epoxy to soak well into the wood so as not to leave some of the wood with a lighter tint. So then why apply a seal coat in the first place? I thought it was for two reasons; 1) weight savings and 2) prevent glass starvation from epoxy soaking into the wood. I'm not so sure about the weight savings now because it seems to me you need to apply just as much epoxy either way. I'm almost thinking it better to saturate it until it wont take any more to get the deepest, richest color from the wood.

Your thoughts and techniques?