I am having trouble deciding what to seal my pine alaia with. This is my first one and its make from one of those laminated pine “blanks” at Home Depot. I have researched the forums and looked at many various ways of sealing these things, but I still had a question that wasn’t being answered (I think). If i were to use marine varnish to seal my pine alaia, would it become substantially heavier? I want this thing to last for a while, even though I plan on making more. Any other methods that you guys would recommend over using marine varnish? I don’t need to be green…
Heavier? Yes. Substantially? How many coats? Seal it lightly, get it in the water, make sure your finished with the board shaping then coat on the varnish. I bet you will consider chambering at some point during the experience.
In terms of how much weight it adds - easy enough to test this. Weigh it uncoated. Put a coat on and see how much weight is added (presumably the first coat will soak up more varnish). Weigh after the seccond coat. Continue varnishing & weighing until you are finished . At the end you can rpeort on what weight is added.