Clear for a carved Teak boat name panel??

[Aaron Taylor]

I have a project that will be coming up for a name panel for a boat. This sign will be produced from .75" Teak lumber, Vcarved lettering with 23K gold leaf and a black outline. The customer has requested it be "cleared" 5 time to hold up from the abuse it will see from salt water on the bow of the boat. I want the gold to be as bright as it can be with a clear over it.

My question is what would be the best clear to use in this application? Two part auto clear? I have Oneshot UV and Frog Juice. I did do some searching on the site and did not find anything that was of simair situation?

Thanks in advance!

-at

[Patrick Mackle]

You can try:
Hastings Plastics Company
hastingsplastics.com
(310) 829-3449
1704 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA

I buy casting resins, colors, fillers, and metal powders from them as well as a product called FLOWCOAT, a two part clear resin with a nice brush-on viscosity.
Cures glossy with good abrasion resistance I think. Sticks good to raw or sandblasted glass. Mix ratio is 1 to 1 making it easy with no wasted resins.
Packaging begins at one pint cans.
Pat

[Aaron Taylor]

Pat thanks for the info! I'm going to go take a look at there site now. Thanks again.

[Doug Bernhardt]

Also.....weather with 23k gold leaf is no issue. Washing it etc could/can be but as far as far as usual wear it is far better to NOT have a clear. What the client is suggesting is terrific for the wood however.

[joe cieslowski]

Teak is tricky because of it's oils.

This is as good advise as there is.....esp last 2 paragraphs.

http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/finis ... a_sezk.htm

Joe

[Aaron Taylor]

Thanks for the info Joe,

I did alot of researching and calling paint manufactures to get the make up of the clears and varnishes. I went with the marine high end clear awlgrip. The tech guy at awlgrip was very helpful and knew there products very well. If you don't know already the awlgrip clear is a two part 1to1 mix high solids urethane clear for top coating. It has the UV protection in it. The fellow instructed me that a good varnish will need to go down first as the awlgrip cant go on bare wood. He also said that the resin base will need to be a phenolic or tung oil base and told me that alkyd, lacquer, alcohol or solvent would not work for the seal coat. He informed me that the 'hot' two part urethane would wrinkle or pull up the others. I had epoxy so that was the direction I went. Now for the tricky part, the teak. As Joe said its has alot of oil in it, gums the sand paper just trying to sand it. I used a marine epoxy to seal and coat it out. After routing and sanding out all machining mark down to 120 grit, I mixed up a batch of epoxy and reduced it 15% with Laquer Thinner, I then ragged it into the wood and let it cure over night. In the morning the wood was seal very nice so I sanded and applied another coat of full strength epoxy and let cure. My next plan will be to gold leaf the Vcarved lettering and paint a black outline, then shoot the entire thing with the awlgrip clear 5 times.

Any special rules before size over the epoxy? I now have a very smooth surface for the gold to go on?

I will post a picture soon as its complete, thanks again.

[Kent Smith]

I would consider marine z-spar or v-spar which are tung oil spars with alkyd/urethane phenolic resins and a UV inhibitor. They are self priming with the manufacturer recommending 4 coats for a good finish. These have long oil bases so that they are compatable with the teak. I recently gilded a boat transom which had 6 coats of z-spar and the finish was excellent and preferred by many boat owners. (The owner then put 3 coats over the finished lettering, mostly to protect against salt spray and abraision.) The advantage of the spars is that with a light sand, they are easily recoated and that makes long term maintenance a breeze. Check Pettit paints or Jamestown Supply as a source.

Most epoxy does not allow a topcoat so neither size nor other varnish will adhere well. 600 grit sanding would be adviable so the size has a chance to adhere. I don't know how well the allgrip will work as I have not used that product. I hope your mixture works well.

[Aaron Taylor]

Thought I would post the finished panel. Learned alot on finishes from this project.

[Jerry Berg]

Looks nice Aaron!