Smith's Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (CPES)

Hello Mates. One of the repair projects on my list is to refinish the cabin sole on the '87 Ericson 38-200 I purchased this past summer. I've spent quite a bit of time looking through prior threads on this and doing other research. I've noted several recommendations to use CPES as a primer for the ultimate finish product (likely polyeurethane). Are there any potential problems I should be aware of in using this product? Are there better alternatives? Is this product still highly recommended? As always, thanks in advance for your input.

Craig

I think it is universally accepted that CPES is a great initial treatment for a new cabin sole.

No idea if the brand matters.

But if you call the Smith company, Steve Smith often answers the phone. It's a free earful.

I installed a new cabin sole in our 87 34-2 last spring and used two coats of Smith's CPES to seal and prime the new raw teak and holly plywood. The CPES did a great job and provided a nice base for the final finish.
CPES is very thin (think of working with water) and I think that since your sole has already been finished that the product won't be able to penetrate the wood and may turn into a mess. As Christian said be sure to call Steve Smith he's more than happy to help.
For a final finish I put down three coats of Verathane semi gloss oil based polyurethane floor finish. The sole took a beating this summer and still looks like new.

Wow, your sole looks fabulous! I'm a bit embarrassed to say that i'm taking the easy way out and simply refinishing the "old" sole in my '87 Ericson. To address your point, my plan is to sand or otherwise remove the finish on sole -- taking it down to the bare wood -- so the CPES will be able to soak into the wood. I do have some relatively minor water damage spots on my sole, which I expect may result in some blemishes on the finished product. Thanks for the info re the finish product that you used.

Craig

Note that the T&H veneer is only 1/16th" thick, so sand gingerly.

Here's my refinishing drill: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/entry.php?648-Ericson-38-Varnish-Again

Thanks, Christian. Yes, I will be careful. There are a few spots where the teak/holly has been appreciably darkened. Do those dark spots reflect areas where there has been water damage?

c.gustafson said:

Thanks, Christian. Yes, I will be careful. There are a few spots where the teak/holly has been appreciably darkened. Do those dark spots reflect areas where there has been water damage?

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Yes, the dark spots indicate water damage, but I think the plywood can be saved if there is no delamination and you don't mind some discoloration. That said, the only way you can stop the water intrusion is to take up that section, drying, and sealing it. It and that may not easy to do without wrecking it. On some boats - mine - the glop they put down to prevent squeaking was stronger than the plywood. Other people had better results taking up the sole.

Be more careful sanding than Christian recommended. :0 The veneer is only 1/32" thick.

Teak & Holly Cabin Sole Marine Plywood
1 sided
Marine Grade
.8 mm Face Veneer
Teak 2-3/8" wide
Holly 1/4" wide

Their bold face, not mine. 0.8mm = 1/32".

Craig,

You probably already saw the thread below on refinishing the sole (vs new). Post #8 has the link to the technique I used to strip the old finish with a heat gun and 1 inch scrapper.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?13839-Varnishing-cabin-sole-(again)

This worked great for me. It didn't take that long to get a feel for how to direct the heat gun and for how long to get the finish completely off. The peeled off curly strips of old finish were easy to vacuum up and a lot less messy than sanding. My sole didn't need sanding after the strip.

I did try some bleaching of dark spots and steaming to try and raise dents but neither worked much for me. My sole still came out great. It was in good enough shape that replacing was overkill.

Mark

True. My original sole is far from perfect, but with new finish it looks great and has character.

And I don't know about Tom's, but my veneer is 1/16th thick. I measured it.

Christian Williams said:

And I don't know about Tom's, but my veneer is 1/16th thick. I measured it.

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First time I've been called thick skinned. Usually I'm called thin skinned.

Christian Williams said:

But if you call the Smith company, Steve Smith often answers the phone. It's a free earful.

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I think everyone should enjoy the experience at least once, but watch out, if you aren't careful, you might end up as a local distributor!

And btw, the stuff is great.

I'm toying with saving my original sole and refinishing by sanding in place. Some of the darker spots that are discolored but not outright damaged give it a fair bit of character.

I started by practicing on the bilge cover plates using 220 grit on a palm sander. As mentioned, the teak tends to be proud of the holley. Ive had to sand the holley by hand with narrowly folded sandpaper strips. It's slow, but the results have been quite good.

If overzealous on the palm sander, I've found Varnathane's Gunstock stain colors the partially-exposed plywood to a close match with the teak.

My trial is making me lean towards attacking the whole sole this way. My biggest "con" argument is that I still won't have TAFG access and a removable floor if I refinish in place.

So, is the recommendation to apply 2 coats of CPES before varnishing?

Ymmv

So, is the recommendation to apply 2 coats of CPES before varnishing?

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I went with two coats. Because I was working with new plywood the first coat was completely absorbed by the wood and the second coat filled the grain ( A third coat might have been better but this stuff ain't cheap !).
Working with older wood that has already been finished you may find that one coat is good.

Many thanks for all the very helpful comments and instruction!

Craig

Another (dumb) question re sole refinishing -- Tung oil??

Hello Mates. Per my prior threads, I'm working on refinishing the sole in my '87 38-200 (not removing the sole, refinishing in place). I will soon have the sole down to the bare wood. My present leaning is to prime with CPES and finish with multiple coats of polyurethane. However, as part of my research on this project, I came across a few recommendations to use Tung oil to refinish the sole. I'm not looking for a high gloss finish --- but I understand that Tung oil would require quite a bit more maintenance than CPES/polyurethane. But I'm still a little intrigued by the Tung oil option. Has anyone gone the Tung oil route before on the sole? Any words of wisdom? Thanks, again, for everyone's input.

l like the idea of an oil finish but my thinking is that the oil will provide no where near the protection to the thin top veneer of the plywood that the epoxy / poly finish would.
I bought my Smith's CPES from Cedar Tree Boat Shop in Des Moines , Ia. Paul at Cedar Tree is a wooden boat guy and was very helpful with all my finishing questions.

http://cedartreeinc.com/

Varnish works. Six coats over the CPES coats. Sure you can use polyurethane, I suppose it could be water-based, I suppose it can have the same amber character as real varnish.

A sole is walked on, spilt on, gets hammer dropped on, gets swept, vacuumed, wet with salt and fresh water, ketchup, motor oil and lamp oil, sometimes with a nice sand abrasive or coffee grounds or just busted glass from the hurricane lamp that used to be there.

Varnish is tough, flexible, traditional and it looks good. Higher gloss the better. Slippery? Nope, at all all. In fact, grippy under bare feet.

We don't need UV protection in the saloon, but we do need the traditional buildup of many coats.

Refinishing a sole down to wood in situ? (i.e. without taking it home): I would pick a fast-drying product, Jet Speed for example. And the polyurethanes are very fast.

Took me a couple of weeks to lay down eight coats in my garage, day of drying between coats. That's not practical working on the boat.

(This is all starting from bare wood. Refinishing existing varnish is just one or two coats every year or two.)

Or you could cut some West epoxy with a little acetone and achieve the same result. Honestly, I don't get this doing this on a cabin sole. And never use an oil finish on wood you are going to walk on.