When I first started building a couple of years ago I had some bad experiences with epoxy finish, who doesn’t when you are starting out? I searched for an alternative and found Diamondite, the Diamondite was nearly foolproof, just brush it on and it would cover and level perfectly every time. The only problem was the occasional blush or cloudiness if the rod got wet, it was somewhat unpredictable which rods would be effected but it seems to happen if the rod gets wet before the Diamondite has cured for at least a couple of weeks. I decided that I couldn’t risk that problem anymore so I got some TM lite and decided to learn how to use it. My first coat of TM lite was a complete disaster, dry spots, lumps, bubbles, and about everything that could go wrong. I thought back to all of the advice offered on this board about getting perfect epoxy finish that I had mostly ignored because I was getting fine results with Diamondite. I ended up incorporating advice received here, such as hand turning and wicking off the excess, using a spatula to apply the epoxy over large areas like decals, and using a straw to blow bubbles out of the finish. Now I am getting finishes even better than I was getting with Diamondite, thanks to all of the good advice I received here.

Now I will pay back with a tip of my own. I recently had one of the “electric decals” lift when I was putting epoxy over it, as you can guess this made a huge mess and was a pain to fix. In the original article Tom wrote about a technique to wrap the decal with paper and thread to make sure it was very well stuck down before you put the finish on. That would work fine, but I got great results using surveyors ribbon to hold the decal down. The surveyors ribbon is very non stick and very stretchy, just wrap it tightly over the decal and let it sit for a couple of hours. The tape is very inexpensive and a lot of us probably already have some on hand.

I use Saran wrap (without wrinkles) to smooth down reinforced epoxy patches on canoes & boats with great success.

Bill, I believe that Mike is using the tape to wrap the decal and let it sit before putting any finish on the decal. If I'm correct, you are using the saran wrap to smooth out the epoxy before it cures.?.