Paul,

You can keep sanding or use a flat scraper. There’s a lot of epoxy there, doesn’t look like you’re going to go thru the glass. All those valleys are going to show up with varnish or paint. When the entire boat is a dull gray you’re done. If the glass starts to show in some areas just put a thin coat of epoxy in those places and sand lightly.

George K

   A cabinet scraper will be the fastest and neatest way.

Hooper

 Hi George,

Just to clarify - the "valleys" are the result of ridges of epoxy. To disappear the valleys, the ridges must be removed - even if they cover a wide area. So, remove the ridges - that's what you mean right?  @Hooper - I'll try a scraper as well.

Thanks to both of you. 

Yup, gotta remove the ridges. Remember, sanding (or scraping) is fun!

George K

���Hey Paul! I'm a little ahead of your progress, on my shearwater, built at the same class. I actually ran out of epoxy, and haven't even done the deck yet. Spent all yesterday sanding& sanding&sanding... it's fun! Keep a song going in your head while sanding, I'm stuck on "Into the Mystic". One thing I learned is to keep fresh 120 sanding disc on the palm sander, with frequent changes. I'm at the point where the whole hull is gray, but I'm trying to figure how to keep epoxy from dripping onto it when I go to epoxy the deck. I've just started with this forum, hope to find a hack to solve that problem.

Not sure what you mean by "palm sander" but about half way through our build I borrowed a modern 6in random orbital from a builder friend and it made things easier by orders of magnitude. We ended up upgrading our trusty old quarter sheet trim sander to a 5in random orbital. 

I'm talking about sanding epoxy here. A light sander is always better for wood. A powerful sander can be counter-productive if you wind up sanding the epoxy right down to the wood, which is easy to do owing to all the curves.

For drips I found the best approach was to use a cabinet scraper along the length of the drip, and sometimes a chisel for the balled end of the drip. Bring it down flush with the surrounding areas, then a final sanding to completly remove any evidence of the drip. If you use a sander to get rid of the drip you may find you're also removing too much epoxy from the areas around the drip.

 Thanks to all for the assistance and suggestions. It is *greaty* appreciated. I have linked a few scraping and sanding  in-progress photos. Here is what is what is working (more or less) for me. 

1)  Use the palm sander with 120 grit and smooth out a small area. 

2) Go over the area with a flat scraper. I bought a 1.25 inch and a 3 inch scraper from Lowes. While thsi step seems to help, it is also easy to cut too deep or leave a mark - especially when one gets frustated by a particuarly stubbor step.

3) The final step (for now) and what has turned out to be the absolute key step is hand sanding over the area. This is the only thing that really removes (somewhaht) the epoxy fingers that are the result of epoxy drips.  I have used 100, 120 and 150 grit in this step, 

One side of the deck takes me about 3 hours. 

A word to other rookie builders: In my case the drips on the hull are from epoxy that was applied to the deck. The drips on the deck are from epoxy that was applied to hull. When we applied epoxy in class we were applying directly to the fiberglass. Since we trimmed the excess fiberglass after the epoxy dried it is a very forgiving process. The process at home is not as forgiving. 

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ak0i_L57IVK8n_YKImucZV6SjcI-Bw 

Thanks again to all.