posted 12-06-2013 02:50 PM ET (US)            

Dennis

posted 12-07-2013 09:38 AM ET (US)            

Our cruising boat was an old Hatteras with a total of about 80 feet of wide teak handrail and cockpit coaming. Nothing more beautiful when varnished but nothing more detracting on an old classic vessel when it deteriorates to scaling and peeling. I kept it up myself for 6-7 years. Lots of work.

When sanding down to bare wood and refinishing wood pieces that cannot be removed from the boat:

After sanding with any shape sander there will be corners where the sander won't reach. I've had good luck with a long handled scraper with a triangular tip about a half inch on a side such that you can rotate the blade when it gets dull. Although these are made for scraping the grooves on moulding in homes, you can get into tight corners with a tool like this. I think the brand was "Hyde".

Jumping ahead to the next step of applying coats of varnish, I always dreaded the problem of keeping an expensive varnish brush in good shape between coats and eventually gave up trying to do so.

After talking to a fellow who was varnishing the beautiful teak handrail with a foam brush on his Grand Banks, I switched over to using the better quality foam brushes, not the low density super cheap ones, wrapping them in Saran Wrap between coats, and tossing them when they got stiff. Expert varnishers will scoff at using a foam brush, though. So give foam brushes a try if you tire of trying to maintain a fine varnish brush.

posted 12-07-2013 10:33 AM ET (US)            

quote:

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Expert varnishers will scoff at using a foam brush, though

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This may be changing. A recent article in Fine Woodworking by a finishing professional endorsed high quality foam brushes for some tasks.

posted 12-08-2013 10:09 PM ET (US)            

IF you follow the steps (dig into the reference section for tons of great info) and take NO shortcuts with materials and tools, you will have great results. AND take your time to ensure proper cure time between coats (test with sandpaper). Use commercial sandpaper and tools sometimes only available at auto body shop suppliers or pro painter supply houses.

I use foam brushes and roller for sure but always have my varnish brushes ready (a couple over 20 years old) - and I usually wind up using them. Don't care about attitudes about no foam. I just think real brushes are easier to control especially for tipping off and I hate throwing things in trash.

I've done miles of boards and acres of fine marine plywood panels including Brynzeel (various grades of their mahogany product) including panels used for entire boats.

1) Random orbital sanders are very aggressive and not the easiest to control. I have several, Porter Cable and Bosch. I always use finer paper with these machines. Be extremely careful with those units.

2) my "go to" commercial grade sandpaper for sanding high quality Whaler wood boards is either 120 or 150 using vibrator or hand sanding. I have Porter Cable and my original Makita I bought in pawn shop in Portland in 1984. I test finish condition and project this way.

3) Whaler wood - my experience confirms even if it looks butt ugly and seems ruined, it can be restored. I've had warped boards I've had run through a planer with terrific results.

4) As regards finish prep: assessing the job, for me, it goes like this a) if bright finish has lost 50% of it's original gloss, simple scuff sanding, removing the dust and a few coats of spar varnish (scuffed between coats) does the trick. b) if worse, then decide whether I am going to go all the way to bare wood or not. Considerations are exposed wood, checking, need to fair the wood, edge grain condition etc.

Options are chemical striping or mechanical removal with sanders. Heat stripping is also an option but I've never had to do it. I prepare my tools including cabinet maker's scraper (w mill bastard file to keep burr on edge), vibrator/hand sanding and maybe a belt sander (very very carefully). I actually had great results with belt sanders and mahogany is hard enough that I didn't screw up the surface.

5) I have tons of 150 and go to 220 when I use random orbit sanders usually because they are so efficient. For scuffing I get great results hand sanding (quarter sheet, folded in thirds) as well as vibrator.

6) If you choose to strip with chemical products, have tons of painter rags, steel wool and solvent ready to scrub the grain as clean as possible. Gloves and respirator required.

7) curing time between coats is important to understand especially depending on temp and humidity. There are tricks and techniques for sure.

posted 12-09-2013 08:25 PM ET (US)            

Do not use coarser than 100 grit on a vibrating palm sander as you will leave little circles gouged into the wood which can be difficult to get out. I rarely go below 120 grit.

On random orbital sanders this can be eliminated for the most part, however it is a much more powerful machine and again I would caution against anything under 100 grit. It is also advisable to start a random orbital on the surface rather than above it and bring it down. In the random orbital what you have is essentially a grinder. The random helps but the orbital still can tear up your surface if left to come into contact with the surface at high speed.

Both these machines were designed to sand relatively large flat surfaces and should be used sparingly, if at all on corners or small edge grain surfaces.

What works very well and has been mentioned are scrapers. Not the ones with handles, but cabinet scrapers. These are made of tool steel and come in various shapes and sizes (check "Woodcraft"). Cabinet scrapers can remove a surprisingly large amount of material very quickly, leave no sanding marks, leave an almost blemish free surface, and instead of being thrown away like sandpaper they can be resharpened. This is probably what your grandfather used and is as valid a tool today as it was then.

A far as Boston Whaler, which I have a high respect for and own three, varnish is concerned it is nothing special and the same basic formulas are available today. What is no longer available are companies, well few, that are willing to spend the time and care that Hacker Craft, Chris Craft, and Boston Whaler in its early boats spent to get that eight to twelve coat "Bristol Finish". Those coats are what makes a finish last and what makes it hard to get off.

While I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch I have spent most of my adult life "working wood", first as a carpenter, then for the last thirty four years teaching young people how to "work wood" as a high school "shop" teacher. Please don't take this as pontificating, as I said it's just my two cents worth which in this day and age is still not worth much.

posted 12-09-2013 11:18 PM ET (US)            

As regards Cabinet Maker's Scrapers (not sure if proper name but capped for emphasis) I look for Sandvik brand. They are critical to my varnish/bright finish tool box. One incredibly important reason: once you apply finish coats, or I apply finish coats, I learned to "chase runs and sags" with a real brush as long as possible. Specifically, I search for runs and sags and use wet tip to reduce or spread out them out as long as I can thus reducing or best case, eliminating runs and sags. That is best accomplished if you can keep the object flat/horizontal but that's pretty impossible.

Once the finish begins to really cure the window of opportunity for spreading out the run or sag goes away, surface gets sticky and impossible to brush or tip off.

If, after object cures you find runs and sags there is NO way you can sand the blemish away. That's when you go to your trusty, old school cabinet maker's scraper and very carefully scrape away the run or sag. It's more like peeling it away layer by layer; follow up with sand paper and botta boom botta bing, it's gone or at least ready for next coat.

I have never done 12 coats in my life that I can recall, If I get 5 coats on, that's cool as far as I'm concerned - got that rule down when I was into wood/epoxy drift boats out west. Seemed to work just fine - no complaints.

I usually scuff sanded and recoated the hull two years after it was new, so boat got two or three coats a couple years later whether it needed it or not. To illustrate how simple it is, I could scuff sand exterior, rails, chine and gunwhales on a 16 foot, high side guide boat entirely in about 20 minutes (by hand especially if D Fir w/o epoxy base coats and glass cloth), sometimes using vibrator. I could get the dust off in about 10 minutes (vac and tack rags or my innovation) and have it ready for first coat within 45 minutes from flipping it over. I'd chase the runs, keep an eye on things through a couple of beers, pick the bugs out of the varnish and wait for full cure for next application maybe a day or two. Finish application for that whole boat probably another 30-45 minutes.

Bottom line - Captain's Z Spar is a damn good product, tough, flows great when adjusted and no big deal. Plus skills you learn are applicable to other projects.

I guess the big deal as you assess your project is to determine whether or not you have to fair the wood. ALSO - I've never had any problem with sanding swirls or lines ever. The finish is so viscous it fills microscratches in fine.

The only reason to go 100 or coarser is if you want to "remove" or "reshape" wood for whatever reason. GOAL is to NOT remove wood unless you need to or to fair the surface.

One more thing - Varnish loves a radius edge, NOT a sharp edge. My practice is to "break the edges" of the board using sandpaper hand sanding to make a slight radius or even (carefully) running power sander down the edge (not random orbit) following up with hand sanding. It's really easy and you want to achieve a very slight radius not like w a router.

Your QA inspection tool is your hand. Constantly run your hand over your work to see how smooth it is and make uniform. ASLO when applying, I set up real bright lights to see how I am getting it covered and to look for "dry" spots, runs, sags and boo boos. I have a very bright hand held trouble light ready too.

posted 12-10-2013 11:08 PM ET (US)            

When applying varnish, is it best for the wood to be laying flat?

How do you "set up" your wood so you can get the whole piece coated, without it laying on something?

posted 12-10-2013 11:54 PM ET (US)            

If you can lay the wood flat, "Painter's Pyramids". The pro
paint stores have them, as does the web, though I haven't
noticed them in the big box HW stores.

posted 12-11-2013 10:16 AM ET (US)            

The foam I use is foil faced. I use base layers of epoxy for some pieces, and the foil under the work along with heat lamps on top allow me to preheat the wood. The heat is removed before application of the epoxy, so the wood is cooling. The theory (from a West Marine app note) is that this will minimize air from the pores of the wood being driven out into the finish as bubbles due to the exothermic action of the epoxy curing. Seems to help to some degree.