Varnish instead of epoxy - strip kanoe laminating

[Viktors Saulitis]

Dear friends ,
My friend have much trouble with laminating the strip canoe hull . Bubbles . He remove glass , sand and made new laminating- bubbles again. Removing again, glassing and the same problem . He was start with epoxy. One old boat builder some years ago for laminating canoes was used varnish instead of epoxy . My friend try this method - bubbles again. He have not loosed optimism not yet . May be some boat builder have some experience to work with varnish instead of epoxy and will be so helpful and will share with some information . Thank you .

[Todd Bradshaw]

Viktors. That type of construction needs the strength of the epoxy and fiberglass in order to work, so you're not going to be able to do it with just varnish. It simply would not be strong enough. There are some good on-line sources explaining the epoxy and fiberglassing process that your friend should study before trying again. One of the best is located on the Gougeon Brothers newsletter website.
Go to:
http://www.epoxyworks.com
then click on "Epoxy Techniques & Materials "
then scroll down "Fiberglassing a woodstrip hull" and click on it.
It's a good explanation of the process from one of the best builders of wood-strip canoes.

Good luck.
My wife says "Sveiks Viktors!" She is from Saldus.

[JimConlin]

The article Todd mentioned can be found at
http://www.epoxyworks.com/indexprojects.html

[Viktors Saulitis]

Much thanks for help and kind reply.
Viktors