You will need to fill and sand, then apply a final finish in order to make the surface tack free. One option is finishing resin, which has a wax material added to the mix. The wax rises to the surface and seals it off from contact with the air, allowing the surface of the resin to cure.

You can also apply paint or gel coat. My choice is often to use paint, because the thick gel coat is hard to apply to an exterior surface with a brush. One-part marine polyurethane paints, such as Interlux Brightsides or Pettit EasyPoxy are cost effective and easy to touch up. Two-part paints, such as Awlgrip or Interlux Perfection are tougher coatings, but also more expensive and difficult to touch up.

Paul EsterleThe resulting product was bonded to a teak frame. It made a far more efficient refrigerator.

Gel coat is available in most marine stores and comes in finishing and laminating types. Most marine gel coats are white. Kits with a white base and tubes of color are available, but color matching gel coat is an art and often usually less than perfect. Even if you make a match, the old and the new coats age at different rates and may evolve into different colors over time.

As for my new refrigerator lid, the laminate that made up my mold became part of project, giving me a smooth white surface and sparing me the process of exterior finishing. In the end, the new lid held almost four inches of polyurethane foam and was covered by a teak plywood top plate, a construction that dramatically increased efficiency.