Re: Sanding into weave

Posted by Laszlo on Jan 10, 2007

Mike,

I'm going to be the outlier here and say that your paper is plenty aggressive. It may not be sharp, but it's plenty coarse. 60 will chew right through epoxy, glass and wood. I did a boat once that had about the same level of bumpiness as yours, all with 220. It was a high quality, very sharp 220 that I bough bulk off the net, not the DIY store stuff. (I also changed it very frequently.) Gober is right - all papers are not created equal.

Sanding technique is also very important. A sharp paper will remove the material with almost no pressure. The sander should be resting its own weight or less, and your hands should be just stabilizing. It's just like with a hand saw or kitchen knife. If you're applying more than light pressure, your tool needs to be sharpened (or the paper changed). With light pressure you can never make a big mistake.

In the center of your picture, on the side panel, you are starting to approach the glass. That regular, cross-hatched pattern of dots is the epoxy that's on top of your weave. You can safely take it it down a bit more.

That 3 coats is an average. If you use very thin coats, you can end up with 5 or 6, but still use less epoxy than the average 3. Your coats look pretty heavy.

If I was doing your boat, I'd sand it with #220 until most of it was dulled, apply another coat with a roller and tip it with a foam brush to make the thinnest possible epoxy coat. Then repeat until all the shiny spots were gone. Should take 1 - 2 hours for each sanding operation.

Good luck and make haste slowly.

Laszlo

In Response to: Sanding into weave by Mike on Jan 10, 2007

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