Lot's of Cetol talk now and I didn't want to hijack another thread.
I've been redoing our hatch boards and cockpit table this off season. I chose Cetol Marine Natural Teak followed by Cetol Gloss due to some reviews here. I was a Cetol hater due to it's orange coloring, but prior to starting the project, I did a side by side comparison on one of the hatch boards with varnish. This Cetol combination doesn't have any orange tint. I decided the maintenance benefits of Cetol outweighed any slight aesthetic virtues of varnish. We'll see how it lasts in the sun.
The problem I've had is in the application of the Cetol and gloss coats. For both finishes, I can't avoid the formation of very small bubbles. I tried all sorts of brushes (from high end Purdy natural brushes to the cheap foam brushes). The instructions call for the finish to be "applied liberally". I tried that as well as thinner coats. All pieces were sanded w/ 220, vacuumed, tacked clean and then wiped with Interlux 216 or alcohol. I also tried sanding in between coats (320 or scotch pad), with no luck. Different brushing speeds didn't help either.
My first inclination was to thin out the Cetol as it's pretty viscous, much more so than varnish. I decided not to as the instructions spell out in all caps "DO NOT THIN". I noticed Ronbo mentioned thinning it in a recent thread. The only success I had was with the table where I was able to 'float' a very heavy final coat when the table was laid flat and the fiddles contained the liquid. Doing this on the hatch boards would result in holidays everywhere.
Any suggestions to avoid this problem? Is thinning the key, and if so what have you used as a thinning agent?
I've been redoing our hatch boards and cockpit table this off season. I chose Cetol Marine Natural Teak followed by Cetol Gloss due to some reviews here. I was a Cetol hater due to it's orange coloring, but prior to starting the project, I did a side by side comparison on one of the hatch boards with varnish. This Cetol combination doesn't have any orange tint. I decided the maintenance benefits of Cetol outweighed any slight aesthetic virtues of varnish. We'll see how it lasts in the sun.
The problem I've had is in the application of the Cetol and gloss coats. For both finishes, I can't avoid the formation of very small bubbles. I tried all sorts of brushes (from high end Purdy natural brushes to the cheap foam brushes). The instructions call for the finish to be "applied liberally". I tried that as well as thinner coats. All pieces were sanded w/ 220, vacuumed, tacked clean and then wiped with Interlux 216 or alcohol. I also tried sanding in between coats (320 or scotch pad), with no luck. Different brushing speeds didn't help either.
My first inclination was to thin out the Cetol as it's pretty viscous, much more so than varnish. I decided not to as the instructions spell out in all caps "DO NOT THIN". I noticed Ronbo mentioned thinning it in a recent thread. The only success I had was with the table where I was able to 'float' a very heavy final coat when the table was laid flat and the fiddles contained the liquid. Doing this on the hatch boards would result in holidays everywhere.
Any suggestions to avoid this problem? Is thinning the key, and if so what have you used as a thinning agent?
