Protective, watertight finish for wooden vase

[ear3]

I was making some wooden vases as xmas gifts, and am wondering what might be the best finish in case the people I give them to want to put water in them for flowers.  I figured some sort of epoxy from the boat-building world?  Any brand/type suggestions appreciated, with an eye towards ones that can be relatively easily applied to both exterior AND interior of vase form.  Thx.

 

[Cheese]

Hey Edward, I just quasi-completed an outdoor finishing project this summer and I've become very happy with the results. I used Smiths CPES, Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer and I'd give that a high recommend. I found it through queries to the wooden boat building/maintenance industry.
http://www.smithandcompany.org

It's claim to fame is that it will permeate wood fibers because it is the consistency of water as opposed to just laying on the surface and becoming hard.
It will build a surface thickness but it will take multiple coats because of it's viscosity, I've applied 20+ coats for a proper build-up but it sets within 5-10 minutes so the time span is negligible.

For your situation I'd suggest placing some CPES inside the vessel, sealing the opening and then swirling it around inside for a few minutes. Emptying the vessel and when cured, 5 to 15 minutes, then repeating the process several more times. The cool thing about CPES is that you can control its cure time by purchasing either the normal temp or low temp version...thank you boat builders...

For your particular application, I think several internal applications of CPES followed by an internal application of your traditional West style epoxy would give you the water proofness that you need. That way you'd saturate the wood fibers with epoxy while also laying on a thick top coat of epoxy to thwart the water issues.

Here's some interesting notes on the CPES that may be of some interest.
https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/finishing/refinishing-rebuilding-teak-outdoor-furniture/30/

 

[ultane]

I have used West System Epoxy products for 25 plus years, on my own home built boat, and many other boat repairs (for friends only). They started the ball rolling several decades ago, and have probably done more high quality research into the proper use of epoxy than all other companies combined. They have a ton of stuff available on their website to teach new users in the proper, and SAFE, way to use their products. Their technical support (telephone) staff is awesome as well. If I wasn’t going to used West System, I would use System Three.

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