Varnish update

The weather is definitely cooling off, the varnishing season will be over before I/you/we know it. The main hatch now has 4 coats on it, the ladder has 3 new coats on top of the old, but the treads will need alot more as they get very heavy use. The interior varnish is still holding up pretty well, but the handholds and a few other spots are pealing, so I'm tackling those slowly.

The veneer is in sad shape (right: lower right) and we'll have to do something about it.
I believe the interior is Burmese teak as it is more reddish than golden.. but I might be wrong.

Batten down Varnish the Hatches!!

After letting the polysulphide caulk cure a good long time, I've put the first 2 coats of varnish on the main hatch. Very exciting!

The teak used on the hatch is much more golden in color than the teak of the coamings and railings leading us to believe it is a different variety of teak. Teak at the time of the boat's building would have come from Indonesia or Burma, so presumably the teak used on the boat could be a mixture of both.

The companionway ladder has been getting a lot of wear and needed to get refinished badly. The lower rung (top of frame) gets the least wear, which is why it still retains more of the dark golden brown varnish than the upper rung.

Here is the ladder after the first new coat of varnish, possibly in 10+ years.

The continuing story of varnishing bill... er chaz

The handrails and cockpit coamings have their first coat of varnish on!
Oooooh! shiny!

The toe rails and main hatch are the only things that remain.

laz hatch: 3
cabin trunk trim: 3
main hatch exterior trim: 3
weather boards: #1: 3, #2: 2, #3: 3
main hatch interior trim: 2
binnacle: 2
handrails: 1
coamings: 1

The first rule of varnish club is...

1. You don't worry the varnish.
2. You do NOT worry the varnish.
3. Wherever you put a freshly varnished piece to be out of the way will invariably be the corner you varnish yourself into.
4. Human hair has special magnetic properties that propel it towards fresh varnish, sometimes taking the person it's attached to with it.
5. also, polarized sunglasses can make it difficult to see new varnish going on previous layers.

I had a captain once who made a rule that we weren't allowed to wear sunglasses while varnishing because of this. To which another captain I know would have rebuked, "It's not a piano." I wear my sunglasses when I varnish- and sometimes at night.

Varnish tally:
laz hatch: 3
cabin trunk trim: 3
weatherboards #1: 2, #2: 1, #3: 2
main hatch trim: 1
binnacle: 1
chaz: 0

Varnishing round 2

This morning is about 73 deg/f and so I got another coat of varnish on.

laz hatch: 2
cabin trunk trim: 2
weatherboards 1,3: 1
weatherboard sill: 1

I'm still using heavily cut Epiphanes on these first coats.