Painting a Canoe: Cosmetic Flaw

[David Winer]

I have been painting a recently re-canvassed canoe. This involved ROS sanding the filler with two grades of paper, applying two coats of primer, sanding after each with water and wetordry 240, and two coats of slightly thinned Interlux polyurethane enamel, sanding with water and wetordry 400 between coats.

This has been a lot of work but the result is quit pleasing except for one place where the final coat showed three inches of sag. After a day of drying, I cut/scraped the sag marks off (they were still slightly soft), leaving a small marred area that I plan to work on as follows: Gently sand with wet 400 paper, followed by painting the area with a small artist brush, using thinned enamel.

Anyone with a better solution? For several reasons, I don't want to re-paint the whole canoe.

[Tom Rick]

It's possible that you can buff out the sags. I have sprayed lots of AwlGrip and other linear polyurethanes which have a decided tendency to sag if you are off your game. With these paints I will either sand out the sag or scrape down with a razor. After getting the paint fair to the surface sand out to 2000 grit paper and buff out with some fine compound. Your one part paint is not as hard as the two parts so you may have a bit more of a challenge. Another thought if this is not for a client or gift is to just sand it out with fine paper and then catch it when you repaint in a year or two..

[David Winer]

It's possible that you can buff out the sags. I have sprayed lots of AwlGrip and other linear polyurethanes which have a decided tendency to sag if you are off your game. With these paints I will either sand out the sag or scrape down with a razor. After getting the paint fair to the surface sand out to 2000 grit paper and buff out with some fine compound. Your one part paint is not as hard as the two parts so you may have a bit more of a challenge. Another thought if this is not for a client or gift is to just sand it out with fine paper and then catch it when you repaint in a year or two..
Thanks, Tom, for the excellent advice. I have already proceeded as mentioned--not with such finesse as your method--and it is quite o.k. for my user canoe. (I'm the user.) There was a need to get it ready for an outing.

The repair is visible only if you look for it. Next time I will go for your method, akin to fine furniture finishing.