I recently went a little overboard with puffing on the straw to break some bubbles, and when the epoxy hardened it had sort of a satin look, not the hard, shiny, glossy, look that I love. Before putting another coat on I thought I'd try the plastic polish that is used to bring cloudy auto headlamps back to clear and shiny (the cloudy look on the headlamps is right on the surface, for the most part). It worked great, very easy, and the epoxy now "pops" as it should, making the abalone look so much better.

Stop eating onions and hot peppers before you puff through the straw and your epoxy will stay glossy. lol!

Rather than using a straw, use a heat gun with warm dry air.

Often the cause of the appearance, is due to trapped moisture from blowing on the finish.

Good luck

roger wilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rather than using a straw, use a heat gun with
> warm dry air.
>
> Often the cause of the appearance, is due to
> trapped moisture from blowing on the finish.
>
> Good luck


That sounds very logical and makes a lot of sense.

Thanks, Jim Ising. I never thought of that. Yes, Roger, I thought that the moisture was the cause. I've been reluctant to use a heat gun because of the likelihood of blowing dust around. I have done it in the past.
And yes, Roger, I know how you deal with dust, but my build bench is a 6 foot resin table in my bedroom. So I just try to keep it as clean as possible, don't do fly tying at the same time as rod building, and am always struggling with dust.

But anyone who screwed up like I did, there is an easy and effective solution.

Michael,
If you have a dust issue where you build, you can help the situation by running a nice hepa filter system. This is a fan that constantly recirculates the air and continues to filter dust out of the air.

Here is an example of a system that is similar to the one that I use:

[www.walmart.com]

The filter elements are easy to change, so if you buy the system, pick up a half dozen replacement filters so that you can keep the system operating at full efficiency.

Another nice thing about these systems is that the noise level is quite low.

Good luck

Thanks, Roger, will consider it.