Brand of resin, filler

[Elvis_Presley]

I bought a cedar strip canoe some guy built and never finished. The outside looks done. The inside has some drips and, in places, still has texture of fiberglass cloth.
To finish it, i think i need another layer of resin on the inside. there are also a few divits to fill.
Does it matter what resin i buy? What filler should i use? Can I i use bondo resin, or do should i use the more expensive stuff?
On top of everything, i was going to use a few coats of spar varnish. Is that correct?

 

[Greg Nolan]

I don't have advise on what to use -- but don't use Bondo resin (the 2-part stuff used for auto body work). Bondo Spot Putty does work for small dings and dents -- but it is rust red, and not clear.

 

[mccloud]

It would help you to know what resin the guy used before you. The rule of thumb has been that epoxy will stick to everything but not everything will stick to epoxy. So if the boat was built with vinyl ester and you go over the top with epoxy, that will work. But if the resin used in building was epoxy, and you try to use a bondo-type polyester resin, that will not work well. If it was my job to do I'd play it safe and use an epoxy that I've used before and know how it behaves. Tom McCloud

 

[ralphdisley]

West system will be the best, I also recommend fiberglass 7 oz cloth. So its like this give the cedar a drink of epoxy then cloth then more epoxy until your fiberglass has been filled over smooth. Then hit it with a varnish coat.. Good stuff from a marine store.. Good luck

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

He said it's already glassed on the inside, so there is no reason to add more fiberglass cloth. The first thing to do is to decide whether or not you even want to hide all of the cloth texture on the inside. It provides a pretty decent non-skid finish as is. Some people like to go ahead and fill it with more resin and cover the cloth texture - though resin isn't varnish and doesn't lay flat as well, so if you truly want a smooth, good-looking interior, you'll probably need to sand it that way after applying resin. You also add excess weight to the hull by filling that texture and may be making your inner fiberglass layers a bit more brittle (reduces the fiber-to-resin ratio).

If you do coat the inside, use epoxy resin, and one that is made for transparent finishes, like WEST EPOXY 105/207. It's a pretty good idea to avoid anything with the Bondo name on it when working on boats, as there is nearly always something available that works better. I don't know what sort of "divits" you need to fill, so there isn't much that can be said about fixing them, though you can probably watch a batch of resin as it gradually starts to thicken and fill them with that if you want clear filler. Whether you resin-coat the inside or not, you want to add a final layer of two or three coats of a good, UV-filtered marine varnish inside and out to protect the resin from UV damage.