Varnish over epoxy?

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Weekend Yachtsman

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I had new washboards made from inch-thick solid sapele. They look wonderful! I gave them a wash-coat of West System for hard-wearingness, left it ten days to cure completely, rubbed it down well, and then applied a coat of Epifanes clear high-gloss varnish.

This varnish is supposed to cure in 24 hours, so that I can get on with applying the 8 or 9 coats that will be needed (!), but after 48 hours it's still pretty sticky.

Was this too quick to apply it over the epoxy? Is it ruined, do I have to strip it off somehow, or should I just wait until it does cure?

Does anyone have expertise in this area?
 
Weekend Yachtsman said:
I had new washboards made from inch-thick solid sapele. They look wonderful! I gave them a wash-coat of West System for hard-wearingness, left it ten days to cure completely, rubbed it down well, and then applied a coat of Epifanes clear high-gloss varnish.

This varnish is supposed to cure in 24 hours, so that I can get on with applying the 8 or 9 coats that will be needed (!), but after 48 hours it's still pretty sticky.

Was this too quick to apply it over the epoxy? Is it ruined, do I have to strip it off somehow, or should I just wait until it does cure?

Does anyone have expertise in this area?
Click to expand...

I have varnished over West epoxy and not had a problem, I think it was blakes classic varnish but Epi should be ok. Did you wash off any amine blush that may have formed on the surface during the epoxy cure...

I guess all you can do is wait or scrape and do again.

Or call the wessex resins help line, they are very helpfull on the phone.
 
Temperature is very important if you want your varnish to dry quickly. I always try to do fancy bits at home, varnish on in the garage then dry overnight on the kitchen table.
Unless you are doing the work in a heated environment 2 days or more at current day/night temps is quite normal!!
 
Varnish over epoxy.

I dont think the epoxy has caused a problem, Epifanes is a very viscous varnish, especially when applied in cold conditions, it needs a lot of thinning to make it flow.
Did you use the correct thinners [epifanes] rather than white spirit, turps etc?
I made this mistake when using epifanes to varnish a gp14, it took 3 weeks to fully dry,on subsequent coats i used the correct thinner and hey presto recoatable in 36 hours.
Great varnish, and it does what it claims, but follow the guidlines to the letter...
 
Epifanes think it could be. Flow doesn't seem to be the OP's problem but after 10 days the epoxy should really be cured. Unless it blushed..

ScreenShot140.jpg
 
Well here we are a week later and it's still tacky in places.

It seems the epoxy wasn't sufficiently cured despite the time it was left for and the fact that it had been rubbed down pretty thoroughly.

My plan now is to rub off this varnish, thoroughly wash the exposed epoxy with acetone and dry it, then try again.

For info: this work is being done at home in a relatively warm room. And I did not thin the varnish at all, the rationale for that being that the wood was already sealed (with the epoxy) so there was no need.

Thanks to all for the comments and links, I'll post back with the results next week.
 
I ALWAYS thin Epifanes, even a prestige job top-coat, otherwise it just does not flow. You only need 5% to make a difference.
More thin coats are better than one glucky thick coat.
Cheers,
Chris
 
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