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i am ready to glass the deck of my Ch 17 and I am confused about the advisability of putting down a base coat of epoxy before laying the fiberglass. From what I can tell there is no consensus on this - are there any disadvantages? If I go ahead with a base coat how quickly can I lay the fiberglass? If done the same day no sanding required as would be the case after the first if I were to lay the fiberglass on the bare wood? Thanks. Bruce
1 reply:
RE: Ch 17 deck base coat
» Submitted by hspira - Sun, 3/4/18 » 2:15 AM
the 'base' coat as you describe it is also often called a skim coat. if you do it in the morning, you can do your glass coat later in the day.
the idea of the skim coat is simply to put a very light coat (often spread with a squeegee) to just block the pores of the wood...so when you do the later glass coat, it prevents the wood from soaking up all the epoxy and potentially leaving a dryed out area of glass. this usually results in a lighter overall build and protects against outgassing (when during rising temperatures, the wood gives off air that gets trapped as little air bubbles int the glass/epoxy.
i usually do it becuase i like to keep my builds light....and avoid the having to babysit the next coat....looking for places that i thought were wetout but where the wood aborbed the epoxy...not leaving enough in the glass. i also like to not have to worry about out-gassing.
it does add an extra step....and you can certainly get away with not doing it with no major problems....so its really a matter of preference and how you want to control factors like weight and out-gassing (e.g., only epoxy during declining temperatures)
h