Not sure what you mean by "varnish has not held up well". If it has
given you good service for 5 years or more, thats not a bad track record
for a wood kitchen counter top finished bright. Sand out any cracks and
peals and feather any edges, then give it another 4 or 5 thin coats.
Doesn't seem like it would be too much work once every 5 years or so.
Less work if you mend it more regularly

I suspect the counters get wet, but how wet how often depends on your
life style. If they're normally dry, and you can live with some slight
stains, you could remove the seal coat (sand lightly) and just slosh
furniture oil over the surface once a month. Some people like the look
_and_ the small regular maintenance, and the teak is pretty tough stuff
anyway; it doesn't really need protection inside, except to make it
easier to clean and eliminate some stains.

Bars (as in pubs) used varnish for many years and now use a thick layer
of epoxy plastic - but I don't much like the glass-like look of it.
However, I'm not sure Lew is correct about expoxy needing UV protection
indoors, and it does give one real hard finish. If you want extra hard,
I guess you could clean up the wood then put a layer of fiberglass cloth
into epoxy, let it setup, then smooth-coat it with more epoxy. That
would protect against most hard knocks; the fiberglass quite literally
vanishes, disappears - it becomes completely transparent and invisible.

However none of these finishes is proof against heated cookware straight
off the stove or sharp knives. If that's your issue, you need to think
tile or corian or something like that.

Rufus


Cindy Ballreich wrote:

I have to refinish our galley countertops. These are surfaced with
fairly thick teak veneer (in good shape) which has been previously