Whew...one coat down and two more to go. I pulled my hand rails off two weeks ago and dragged them home. Thankfully I have pickup. Just too darn cold to work outside until now and too darn long to bring inside. I had scraped off most of the varnish last spring and then never got around to the finish work, so I decided to bite the bullet and do the job right.
I am glad I did. Nobody had ever varnished the undersides, which is a varnishing no-no. They were molding and nasty underneath. They had been scraped down so many times that there was a little volcano of wood around each bolt head! I decided to just sand them clean rather than use a teak cleaner and brightner, rinsing them and letting them dry. I then wiped them down with ethanol with cheese cloth to remove surface teak oil and sawdust. I applied one coat of Cetol last night and am now in my 24 hour waiting period before the next coat. It looks good...except that S2 chose two pieces of lumber with vastly different grain patterns. They look very different at the moment, but hopefully the pigment in the Cetol will even out the color.
I'd like to make some protective covers for them, but they are so darned long! I can't imagine hacking something together out of sunbrella with my non-existent sewing skills that would look good. Of course my Wife has a whole room dedicated to sewing, but I can't get her to sew on a button. I did buy a roll of sunbrella to make a companionway cover, but that work is still pending. It is a fair amount of material, but the easiest way to do the rail covers would be to start with a piece of the right length, which would burn through a lot of material for sure. I was thinking about just using velcro between the stand off pins, perhaps mounting a snap at each end. Has anyone tried this?
Cetol definitely isn't for everyone. I was looking for something that provided maximum protection with a minimal number of coats. I think it will do that, but the price you pay for it is perhaps a darker color than some would like. I tried it last spring on the hatch boards. They needed some attention, so I just sanded them and applied a coat, as something was better than nothing. It held up well through one season. I will apply a second coat this year as maintenance.
I am glad I did. Nobody had ever varnished the undersides, which is a varnishing no-no. They were molding and nasty underneath. They had been scraped down so many times that there was a little volcano of wood around each bolt head! I decided to just sand them clean rather than use a teak cleaner and brightner, rinsing them and letting them dry. I then wiped them down with ethanol with cheese cloth to remove surface teak oil and sawdust. I applied one coat of Cetol last night and am now in my 24 hour waiting period before the next coat. It looks good...except that S2 chose two pieces of lumber with vastly different grain patterns. They look very different at the moment, but hopefully the pigment in the Cetol will even out the color.
I'd like to make some protective covers for them, but they are so darned long! I can't imagine hacking something together out of sunbrella with my non-existent sewing skills that would look good. Of course my Wife has a whole room dedicated to sewing, but I can't get her to sew on a button. I did buy a roll of sunbrella to make a companionway cover, but that work is still pending. It is a fair amount of material, but the easiest way to do the rail covers would be to start with a piece of the right length, which would burn through a lot of material for sure. I was thinking about just using velcro between the stand off pins, perhaps mounting a snap at each end. Has anyone tried this?
Cetol definitely isn't for everyone. I was looking for something that provided maximum protection with a minimal number of coats. I think it will do that, but the price you pay for it is perhaps a darker color than some would like. I tried it last spring on the hatch boards. They needed some attention, so I just sanded them and applied a coat, as something was better than nothing. It held up well through one season. I will apply a second coat this year as maintenance.
