Not a day goes by when someone wandering down the dock stops to mention what a beautiful vessel we have, and then notes how happy they are that they don’t have all that woodwork to care for. Well, all I’ve got to say to them is (tongue between lips) PPPHHHZZZTTT!!! We do have a ton of teak on deck, and most all of it was in terrible shape. So I did some investigation, and a plan of action was implemented. Time to bring back the brightwork!
We started by stripping the old varnish off with a heat gun. Weeks passed and the stripping continued. I kept waiting for our harbor master to come and tell me he was going to raise our rates to cover the electric bill. But after several bags full of varnish peelings, and the obligatory minor personal injuries, we were on to step two - sanding. With a hefty investment in the sandpaper industry, we were beginning to think that bare wood didn’t look so bad. Alas, I had my heart set on a nice shinny finish and the grayer the teak got in the sun, the more adamant I got about how enjoyable it was to work with wood. I moved on to step three - sealing the wood with teak oil. There was another skipper on our dock who was also wooding his boat down for a new finish, and we commiserated, shared techniques, and patted each other on the back in our little successes. It was nice to have the competition and the moral support.
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Copyright © 2007 Diana W Mulroy - SV Re Metau.  All rights reserved.