you might try tipping it with a foam or bristle brush rather than the hard yellow scraper. those will have a much softer edge to them. if you tip it quickly after putting down small sections with the roller you should get a smooth surface. brush from the dry to the wet only. same technique as used in varnishing and painting for these final coats. also try to use less rather than more epoxy.

David

   What's the point of a perfect coat? Not only is perfection reserved for the Divine and not allowed for Humanity, it's also pointless in this case.

Ask yourself - what's the next step after applying the epoxy? Sanding.

Definitely avoid gobs and drips to make the sanding easier, but don't worry about even coming close to perfection. There's no need.

As a practical matter, David is quite correct about how to tip to get a smoother finish, but this is one time that even if it turned out perfect it wouldn't matter. This is the step that can be gotten through quickly.

Have fun,

Laszlo

   Thanks David and Laszlo,

The foam brush helped a lot. How uniform does the finish in the epoxy have to be so it doesn't show any defects when varnish is put on.

As smooth as if you'd sanded it all over with #220 sandpaper.

Actually, there's 2 levels of smoothness. The first is tha micro level where you're getting rid of unevenness in the epoxy itself. That's best done with sanding with #220 sandpaper. If you try to get it smooth by filling in and not sanding, you'll need lots of epoxy and the boat will weigh a ton.

The macro level is where you're getting rid of unfairness on the boat - large area dips and peaks. Those are best attacked by localized applications of epoxy in the dips, then sanding with a fairing board, again with #220 sandpaper.

You know you're done when you have a uniformly foggy boat with no shiny low areas, and no high spots seen with raking light. The high spots are easier to see if you wipe the boat with a wet rag because the foggy sanded epoxy will temporarily turn clear.

Again, with all that sanding you'll be doing, any epoxy application imperfections will be ground away, so don't sweat the epoxy application that much. Save the effort for the fairing, you'll need it there.

Laszlo

 I used West System 105 with 207 Special Clear hardener on my Chesapeake.  I rolled it on  and it smoothed out and looked just like it had been varnished, no tipping required.  

It looked so good I hated to sand it!