Posted by sammidog on 11/30/11 - 8:27 AM
#1
Just a little heads up for anyone who may encounter this. I bought an 1986 18 outrage this summer and started refinishing the teak gunnel rails. They had what appeared to be west epoxy underneath a varnish topcoat. Zip Strip did a nice job removing the varnish but did hot touch the epoxy. I had a heat gun set on high and heated the epoxy until you could see it start to blister then used a red devil paint scraper(the kind that the blade is shaped in a u and you can turn it around if one side gets dull) to scrape it off the teak. It did a pretty nice job without damaging the wood. Once you get the hang of how much heat to apply it goes pretty fast. It took about 1/2 hour to do one side. West system really looks nice when you topcoat with varnish(1 coat of west is like 4 coats of varnish) but it can start to lift underneath then your are screwed. I think I will finish with Epifanes(no epoxy base) as I am not too concerned with it being slippery as you really don't need to walk on it that much and it is easy to remove when it needs to be redone.
Posted by DennisVollrath on 11/30/11 - 9:27 AM
#2
I used the same method to remove misapplied epoxy from some mahogany on my 15 sport. It does work very well. In this case though, I was the one who put down the epoxy base. I reapplied it correctly, and finished with varnish. The claim is that this should be good for a longer period of time between refinishing. Time will tell if it was worth the effort and expense. Looks great though.
Dennis