How do I fix the rough edge left by a tape dam?

Any temporary dam leaves a rough, unfinished epoxy edge when it comes off. The cleanest fix is to scuff-sand the whole top, clean it with acetone or denatured alcohol, and pour a new flood coat of UltraClear Bar & Table Top Epoxy over the entire surface, this time letting it flow freely over the sides. That gives you the seamless, smooth, rounded-over edges a full flood coat always produces. The same fix applies if the dam bowed out or leaked and epoxy escaped in places.

If you'd rather not re-pour, the other options are harder and less predictable:

1. Sand or router the edge straight, then polish the epoxy back to a gloss. Polishing epoxy is tricky. 2. Scuff-sand and clean the edges, then brush epoxy onto them as a seal coat. A heat gun helps smooth out the brush strokes. This works for some people, but good results are hard to get.

Spot repairs in general, such as sanding out a bug that landed in the pour and brushing epoxy over the spot, leave a visible seam where new epoxy meets old. Re-pouring a flood coat over the whole top is the only way to guarantee a seamless finish.

If you haven't poured yet, this is why we recommend skipping the dam unless you truly need to contain the epoxy. Let it flow over the edges and you avoid the clean-up entirely.