Quote:
Originally Posted by nvmbr9
I have a new (to me) 23' sailboat. It's fiberglass but there is quite a bit of brightwork. I have a shop on the Cape that specializes in maintaining these boats and does first rate work, but I'd like to go local. That said, there is a wide range in talent in varnishing wood, and I want and am willing to pay for first rate work. Boat will probably need a couple coats every year, and then something more thorough from time to time. Any suggestions based on experience?
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About 5 years ago I did a full restoration of a 1970 O'Day daysailer, originally owned by my uncle, now owned by me. Everything needed to be done, I'll digress on the hull restoration and focus on the wood work. The boat has a lot of beautiful mahogany in the interior, floorboards, combing etc.. all of it was in really bad shape no finish, weathered and grey. I took the entire winter to refinish all the wood, at my leisure of course. Like any wood work it's all about surface prep and what you use to finish it. Unfortunately nothing is ever going to stand up to the weather and sun forever but if you use good quality materials it'll last several years. I opted to use minwax oil based wood stain and minwax wood floor polyurethane for the finish and I probably laid down about 10 coats of poly. Good decision? Well that was 5 years ago and the wood work still looks great. It of course is starting to show some wear from use but I'm pretty happy with the results. I figure in the next 3 or so years I will sand down and re-poly all the wood but I don't think it'll ever need to be completely stripped if I stay on top of it. It's not difficult to do it yourself.