Re: kayak color

Posted by Dave on Oct 15, 2005

The Brightside paints do indeed give you a nice finish.

If you want to color the wood - try a *water based* stain. Home Depot carries the MinWax water based line - but you might have to look for it as "water based" and "epoxy" apparently aren't buzz words in the home improvement industry. They can mix colors for you too.

If you are going to stain the wood - you need to be very careful not to get anything on it - epoxy, oily finger prints, etc. or they will show through the stain. The grain tends to be much less dominant after staining. To limit the amount of stain the wood absorbs, and thus maximizing the amount of grain you see after staining - try dampening the wood with water to a consistent extent then wipe on and wipe off the stain. I have someone right behind me wiping the stain off as I put in on. This helps to keep it light and fairly consistent. You can repeat if you want it darker. It is much easier to put on too much stain then too little. Practice helps!

If you use a really light colored stain - be prepare to have it change color with the varnish. The varnish is yellow and is noticable on very light colors.

Of course - after it's stained you don't want to sand it (so be sure you are sanded and ready to glass before staining) as the sanding will take the color off.

After you are all glassed and doing final sanding you still have to be careful not to sand though the glass and into the stain as you'll sand the color off and it's hard to restain to the same level as before.

So - you can stain the wood but it is a project!

In Response to: kayak color by Thomas Peacock on Oct 13, 2005

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