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On Monday, April 28, 2014 8:01:54 AM UTC-4, F*O*A*D wrote:
On 4/28/14, 1:29 AM, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2014 22:18:50 -0400, Wayne.B

wrote:

The tenth coat went down two days ago and it's looking pretty good. It

was a big job however. About 230 linear feet of hand rails and toe

rails plus about 60 square feet of teak overlay on the transom. That's

over half a mile of sanding and varnishing by the tenth coat. Hopfully

it will be good to go for awhile because it is a PITA project. We're

having fitted covers made for the whole works so that should help to

protect the varnish from UV damage when the boat is sitting at the

dock here in the hot Florida sun.

Some lessons learned:

It is really important to heavily thin the first two coats (about

50%). That helps the varnish sink into the surface of the teak which

improves adhesion and also brings out the rich reddish brown color of

the wood.

Use the best possible varnish. We like Epifanes Wood Finish Gloss.

It is expensive but it lays down well and looks good. Even more

importantly, you can put down new coats without sanding if you re-coat

within 72 hours and the varnish has not been rained on. That is a

really big labor saver even though 4 coats is about the max before it

needs a sanding to smooth things down.

Foam brushes rule. I was able to get a box of 48 from Amazon at near

wholesale prices. Get the good ones with the wooden handle. The

varnish brushed out fine with no lap or brush marks, and at the end of

the day you just throw it out which saves a lot of time, energy and

mineral spitits.

For masking tape I highly recommend the green "Frog Tape". I left it

on for the duration of the job, over 4 weeks, and it came up easily

even though it had been wet numerous times and baked in the sun.

Get a really good sander. I like the Bosch 5 inch circular random

orbit model. It is almost totally vibration free, reasonably quiet,

and has excellent dust collection.

Use a heat gun and scraper for removing the old varnish. I've tried

just about everything, and on balance that is the best way. You need

a variety of scrapers to conform to odd shapes but for straight line

surfaces, the large carbide tipped scrapers with the rubber covered

handle seem to work the best. Think about wearing leather gloves to

prevent burns.

I never did much with varnish, I am not doing boats. I like poly

urethane for inside jobs and the thinning thing is the same. In fact

if you are shooting it, you want all of the coats thinned 50%

I shot about 15 coats on our counter tops and they are still looking

pretty good 10 years later in spite of all sorts of abuse.

My wife won that bet. I thought wood counters would be a maintenance

nightmare.

230 linear feet of reasons *not* to have more than a couple of spots

of exterior wood trim on a boat.

NO ONE...I MEAN NO ONE GIVES A **** WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, YOU LYING SACK OF DOG****^.

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