Good day Douglas,

What you are experiencing is what all of us have experienced at some point. Most of this stuff is pretty fixable.

See my comments embedded below:

: Hello all,

: I would like to impose some questions on you experienced builders
: regarding varnishing and how to hide mistakes.

: 1. The first finishing mistake was when I epoxied a 2" cloth
: around the sheer as a clamp for the deck and hull. I faired in
: the edges on the deck and hull by sanding the epoxied cloth on
: the edges to fair it in. I managed to fair the edges but it got
: ugly.

Not sure what you mean here, but you can sand it fair and then add another fill coat of varnish. If it's still showing through then you can sand with a very fine grit- like 1500, and that will often cause the fibers to not show through as bad. Usually if you have it showing through then you have bare fibers that just need more epoxy.

: 2. The second mistake was not taping when varnishing the hull, the
: varnish dribbled underneath and has varnish lines in the
: underside (deck) on the sheer clamp on the deck. The varnishing
: technique I used was the cross hatch.

Sand it, add another layer of varnish. If it's real bad then you can scrape it with a razor blade held about 90 degrees to the surface, then sand, then varnish.

: I varnished the hull with Mcklosky spar varnish because it is not
: completely clear (amber tone) hoping I could hide a lot of
: mistakes on the hull and cover-up the shiney print- through from
: the sanded cloth along the sheer clamp. It did not work, the
: print through seemed to appear amplified to the surface.

See my other comment above about sanding with 1500 grit. It worked for me when I had a cloth that didn't wet out well and showed through.

: Question; After sanding the sheer clamp - apply a dark mahogany
: aniline dye on it then varnish over it. Anyone have any thoughts
: on this?

You can do it. I'm not much for dyes, but people have done it with good results. Do a test first to see if it mixes with the epoxy. I have had some cheap dyes that lifted into the epoxy when I wet it out.

: Question; To knock down the drip lines on the sheer clamp on the
: deck, I was told by a auto-painter to wet sand with 1500 grit
: then 2500 grit then compound with an auto wax /compound to get
: rid of the drip lines. The deck area also has the print through.
: Should I use a scraper to knock down the hight parts of the drip
: line before sanding?

Most varnishes take forever to fully cure, so you may have trouble wet-sanding them. You can certainly do it, but it has to fully cure and be hard for wet sanding to work. I would scrape first, then sand, then likely you have sanded beyond the varnish and will need another coat. I have switched to automotive clear coats, and I wet sand that, but varnish I usually just let it be as it.

: Question; After varnishing the hull yesterday, upon inspection this
: morning. I saw specks of dust all over the hull. Can I hide the
: dust by varnishing over the dust and do this without sanding?
: The varnish is not completely dry yet (a good time to do this?).

Nope! You need to sand it out. The specs of dust are likely bigger than a coat of varnish, and they will also impede the flow of the varnish. Sorry... embrace the sanding! Pretend it's your favorite thing to do!!! LOL

Cheers,
Malcolm