minwax polyurethane an polyester resin compatibility?

[bzajdek]

I am putting new oak bench seats in my project boat, a 12' generic whaler. The seats are 9.5" oak with 1.5" rips glued and nailed with my 16ga finish gun. The edges will all be rounded over and I would like to use extra minwax polyurethane to coat these several times. They will be screwed to cleats on the single wall hull and fiberglassed at the ends where they are attached to the cleats. This would save resin and possibly look better. If it lasted 5-10 years that would be great. The old benches are plywood and completely rotted.
I also have another question about attaching the cleats to the side of the boat. I would rather not screw through the hull to hold the 2x4 cleats to the side, I was thinking 3M 5200 or a polyester resing peanut butter made with 1/4 chopped strand and collidial silica. Which would be stronger. I read the strength of 5200 is 700 psi and I would think polyester resin peanut butter would be stronger? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Mark42]

Re: minwax polyurethane an polyester resin compatibility?

The right product for what you want to do is :

http://www.iboats.com/Pettit_Flagsh...28699289--**********.341796570--view_id.48439

Do a search in the iboats Marine Store on "varnish" and a quite a few products will come up that are meant to protect wood exposed to marine environment. My personal experience with regular polyurathane on wood outdoors is that it just does not hold up well at all. Go with a marine varnish.

Another option is to stain them, let them fully dry, then wrap in one layer of polyester resin and 6 or 8 oz glass. The glass cloth is so fine that when wetted out, it will be clear.

Regarding the cleats, I have had good success with attaching wood blocks to a fiberglass hull just using marine tex epoxy. I sanded the hull clean and rough, then applied the epoxy and block.