I turned down the shafts on a set of oars I made because they were too stiff. So I got three coats of epoxy back on and my last coat is not curing well. Its been two days and it is still slightly tacky. My best guess is I used too little hardener and the chemical reaction is very slow. For now the oars are in an unused room with the heat turned up hoping to push the cure along.  My alternatives would seem to be waiting, belt sanding the mess off to bare wood, or application of another coat of epoxy over the current surface as it is.

Has anyone been down this road? Thanks for your help.  

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Door # 2. remove the mis-mixed epoxy. Quickest way to fix the issue.

Rick

If it’s a cold issue, many epoxies pretty much stop curing below 50°F.

In a heated room, if you can get them to 80°F they should be hard in 8 hours.

If they’re not hard in 8h, scrape off the previous uncured layer, scuff sand and recoat.

Sanding uncured epoxy is a gummy mess…definitely use a metal scraper.

And never trust your pumps. Always measure or weigh.

Thanks Rick and Shawn, ultimately this issue was my own error and fault, precipitated by changing my method of measuring epoxy.  After 2 days of curing in a very warm room, the epoxy hardened enough that I could scrape and sand it off without too much of a fight. Now I've got two good coats back over the original base and I've moved on to varnish. Now back to dreaming about warmer weather and my first float of the season down the Delaware.

You're super lucky that it went on over hard coats.  It would have been a royal pain if your wood were saturated with uncuring epoxy!!

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