it’s time to do the wood again. i previously used awlgrip. It was touted as a longer term solution to wood care. i’m not impressed with awlgrip and would like to try something new. i am considering cpes (clear penetrating epoxy sealer)as a sealer to be finished with epiphanes. the folks at cpes tell me the epiphanes works well over the cpes here is the tropical heat of florida. any opinions would be appreciated.
thanks for taking the time to respond.
Jo Anne, can you tell us why you are not impressed with Awlgrip? I have had certain components Awlgripped (boomkin and bowsprit). It is certainly a totally different finish than Epiphanes, which I am using on most (but not all) of the other woodwork.
I have not used CPES, just Epiphane itself, and I am in the Pacific Northwest, so I do not have the intense sun that you get in Florida. But I have found Epiphane to be a very good finish. I have used some of the synthetic finishes in the past, but have not been overly impressed with them, so now I am just using Epiphanes for the brightwork.
Gary
Dioscouri (#064)
i used cetol for 10 years on my previous boat. brightwork was taken to bare wood initially and then about every 6 months a green scrubbie scruff and more cetol was applied with no sanding in between additional coats… no problems with it, i was just not particularly a fan of how it looked. since little pearl had considerably more brightwork i wanted a finish that appealed more to my eye.
local finishers said that while clear awlgrip for wood would be a significant investment in both material and laborious sanding both initially and in between the applied 8 coats i would have a finish that i liked and i could expect it to last years. to further protect the wood i had sunbrella covers made that fit over all the brightwork. well in about a year there was serious fading and lifting. frankly the finish just looked lousy and i don’t want to repeat what i feel was a mistake. the local finishers believe there has been a change in the chemical make up of the clear wood awlgrip product, since their good luck with the product turned from good to bad. i have no idea if that is the case.
my sprit is spruce and my boomkin is mahagony. those are coated with epiphanes white paint and not the awlgrip. they still look just fine
when i was in floride stravaigin was nestled next to flyer and he had finished his boat in semco, couldn’t say enough good about it, i gotta say it looked great…
I think Smith’s CPES under Epiphanes is a great choice. On the downside labor intensive and time consuming.
I had to move the radar mounts and one of the mast bands that I had bedded with 5200 (bad move). I tried to repair the damaged areas but could not match the stain and varnish. I decided to start over. I just stripped and sanded back to bare wood my spruce mast, boom and gaff. I am going back with two coats of Awlgrip varnish, the first one thinned, followed by 9 coats of Awlgrip’s clear urethane, “Awlbrite”. I can lay down 3 coats of the Awlbrite per day without sanding between coats. Scuff sand the next day and lay down 3 more coats. Hope I have better results with these products than you did. I’ll post a few photos when done. Would love to see a few pics of your job when you finish.
i just re-read my post and realized i said i used awlgrip. it was actually awlbrite, their product for wood.
i will be happy to post pics when the port side is finished.
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