I’ve sanded the final coat of epoxy to get ready for varnish and I have a few dozen “micro dot” divots which I assume are from popped bubbles when the epoxy was curing. Largest is a bit over 1/8” diameter, most smaller. Can I leave these and hope the 3+ coats of varnish will fill them in? Or do I need to treat them somehow to get the full milky finish on the epoxy before I varnish?
A coat of epoxy just over the areas with dots to fill them and sanding to fair them in will give you the “full milky finish”. There’s no need to recoat the whole boat. It’s actually a reasonably quick and simple fix.
Hoping for varnish to fill it in is futile. Varnish coats are thin so while they may fill the holes, it won’t be an even fill and they’ll show up, glaringly so at certain light angles. Varnish is also less durable than epoxy, so the holes will eventually show up again, maybe sooner than later.
That said, if you don’t care that those holes will show up, moving onto varnishing now won’t hurt the boat or affect the way it floats.
Laszlo