Why bother with the sealer if you're going to be putting on epoxy, anyway? Epoxy will seal the wood very nicely by itself, no need to spend extra time & money.

Laszlo

Sorry I wasn't more clear.

I am only using epoxy as an adhesive where it is needed; not for total coverage.

The only thing the ply is getting is a polyurethane top coat.

So the only purpose of either the sealer or epoxy on the face of the panels is as a sealer beneath the paint.   So basically my quesition is whether I can make use of this paticular sealer knowing some edges of theplywood which now have this sealer, will need to hold epoxy.  Wil the epoxy stck to the wood with this sealer on it?

Ed 

Ed,

OK, so now I understand your original question. The answer is that you've got the order backwards. You should be putting on the epoxy first, then the sealer. That is, glue the boat up, then apply the sealer, not the other way around.

The way you want to build your boat means that you will have a chain of sealer-wood - sealer-epoxy-sealer-wood-sealer. Doing the gluing first and then the sealing changes the chain to sealer-wood-epoxy-wood-sealer. It gets the mystery material to the outside instead of into the middle of the chain. That way, your worst case failure is not a joint failure.

So your question to Interlux should be does the sealer bond to epoxy, not the other way around.

If you're using a good quality paint, which it sounds like you're doing, you can skip the sealer entirely. If you do a thorough job with the prep, including proper use of a primer, the paint will seal and protect your boat against water. The best paint would be a cross-linked 2-part linear polyurethane (LPU) because of the mechanical protection it affords. Just be sure to keep up the maintenance on the paint job and fix all scratches and gouges ASAP. That's where sealing with epoxy has the advantage - it puts a layer of plastic that cures as hard as formica between the paint and the wood and reduces the need for maintenance.

Good luck,

Laszlo

Thanks so much Laszlo.

This is great advice and makes perfect sense.  I also think that the Interluxe folks will be much more able to comment on what their sealer sticks to, rather than "does XXX material stick to their sealer."

My top coat is not yet decided.  My last boat has Brightside (Interluxe) one part urethane, but I will give some thought to using a two part poly for this one.  This is also good advice since this daysailer is quite a bit more expensive than my last boat and the upgrade in the top coat is a sound idea.

 Thanks again.  You have been very helpful.