Almost ruined two brand new canoes today by once again not taking my own advice. It seems like nearly every time I completely screw something up it’s because I’m trying to do something that I explicitly tell my students not to.
In this case it was trying to use up some partially cured polyurethane from the last batch thinking I could get it on fast enough because I’m special and the rules don’t apply to me.
Well, I’m definitely special, but not in the way I’d hoped, and the laws of physics still work the same in my immediate vicinity, resulting in a million little trapped bubbles that I was able to just barely chase out in time with a card.
This is actually something else I tell people not to do because fabric fuzz up from overworking the material is a lot more common and looks nearly identical resulting in a problem that gets worse and worse with carding. If you’re gonna chase bubbles you better be damn sure they ARE bubbles which they won’t be if you followed the instructions. (Looks sideways and whistles).
The 2 part polyurethane I use definitely has a learning curve, but no more so than epoxy, lacquer, varnish or any number of other toxic goo’s. The difference being that for better or worse you only get one shot, and that’s it until you re-skin it. Luckily I was able to pull off a decent finish today despite myself.
Used 4 coats on these two full size canoes for a good balance between weight and toughness. The nice thing about the new application system (rollers instead of cards) is that we can now apply as many coats as we want without the finish sagging. It’s also a lot easier and a lot less messy.
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