I glued a blue heron onlay on the deck of my Wood Duck 10 as instructed followed by a layer of fiberglass and 4 coats of epoxy. Since it had been a couple of months since the last coat of epoxy, I sanded the deck in preparation for the final coat of epoxy. I now have an edge of white around the lower section of the onlay. I attempted to remove it with a Q-tip and some indentured alcohol, but no luck. It is quite unsightly as you can see from the attached photos. Please advise on how to address this before I put the final coat of epoxy on the kayak. Thank you very much. The boat was looking really good until this happened.
For starters, since my first boat or two I have started putting the onlays on top of the fiberglass and then coating heavily with epoxy. They hold up just fine and it avoids problems like this with glass over the sharp edge of the onlay. I know this does not help you now but something for your next build.
For your current issue, I’d take a very sharp pointed tool like an ice pick and gently remove the white areas. Be gentle and work slowly. Once that is done, coat with epoxy to fill in the voids. I just used this technique on a small area on the transom of my current build with good success.
Thank you very much. I will give it a try! Diane
hi Diane,
mark’s advice is spot on but let me give you a little more color that may help.
you may not have seen it when you first glassed over the inlay, but you had some air bubbles underneath the glass at the edge of the inlay. these would have been subtle like a champagne bubble.
when you started sanding, however, you cut into the bubble and then the bubble filled with the white epoxy dust from the sanding. and now they are remarkably visible.
when i have this situation, i use a an exacto knife to ‘open up the bubble’ completely…then flush out the dust with denatured alcohol. if it then shows clear (i.e., the bubble disapears) with denatured alcohol, i will then epoxy over it - filling in the open bubble and you are back to good.
if you can’t get it to look clear under denatured alcohol, you have to keep digging and cleaning out the bubble. sometimes i have had to resort to a toothbrush soaked in denatured alcohol to get the dust out. as a bad analogy, but perhaps useful, its like cleaning out a zitt …the pocket of puss has to be completely cleaned out before it will heal properly.
i hope that is helpful.
h
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Thank you very much for the good info.
Diane
Thank you, Laszlo. Much appreciated.