Refinishing wood in cockpit

[Kristen]

I'm trying to figure out the best method for repairing the neglected wood in my cockpit. I have heavily sanded and revarnished the hatch boards and they now look awesome, but now the tiller and the cockpit locker covers look particularly bad. Note I do have a garage with a full wood shop at my disposal.The tiller is a 3-piece laminated stock, and the glue joint has slightly split between two sections of the laminate at the glue joint. There is around a 1/8" to 1/4" gap there. Otherwise it is sound and could be sanded and varnished. Anyone have any suggestions on how to repair the split? The cockpit locker lids are (I believe) marine ply that lost its varnish 5+ years ago and are weathered. They are still flat and are structurally sound, but the tops are pretty decently grooved and very dark grey in color. I don't think sanding them is an option to varnish them again, the top layer is too far gone. They have not delaminated at all though. Anyone ever tried to paint the things? If so, what did you use and how well did it work?I am eyeballing the tiller handle and seat covers from vega spares (and man are they gorgeous!), but having a hard time with investing that much in something that spends so much time in the weather.

 

[tim_klynn]

You could run the tiller through the table saw on the failed glue joint and reglue, adding in a thin strip if necessary to maintain a dimension.I'm thinking about making up locker lids using some mahogany boards I have laying around.Thickness planing them down rather thin, laminating up essentially a plywood out of them and veneering it with the planed down teak lid covers I have now.My off the cuff idea so far is: Build up the sandwich: 1/8" teak, grain running longways, 1/8" mahogany grain running shortways, 1/8" mah longgrain, 1/8" mah shortgrain, 1/8" mah longgrain , 1/8" mah shortgrain, 1/8" teak grain longways. Glued up with plastic resin glue in a vacuum press, it should yield a very flat, stiff 7 ply 7/8" thick panel. I'd have to route in a channel for the locker coamings to let the panel sit flush. Probably finish with uv epoxy and multiple coats of varnish. The 1/8" teak would allow a few sandings and refinishings if I slacked off on varnish maintenance. The mahogany core would probably be close enough of a color match to the teak that I wouldn't have to edge band it. Hopefully the multiply construction would keep the lids from splitting like solid wood tends to do. If 7/8" is too thick, could always adjust the inner ply layers. Tim

 

[dougpol1]

I replaced my cockpit Locker lids with Philippine Mahogany. I was
unable to find sepela or sepeli hower that is spelled? I bought a
board and had the lumber yard plane it down to thickness. I drilled
holes in the edges and then glued the boards together and doweled
the holes so the glue joints would not be carying all the load of me
standing and sitting on the seats. I made the hatches about 2inches
shorter on each end I then glued and dowled a 2inch wide board cross
ways on each end. That added a lot of strength to the hatch. They
now have about 7 or 8 coats of captains varnish and are beautiful.
I get a lot of compliments on the look of the boat and more people
wanting to talk to me than I care for. Every one tells me I have the
prettiest teak they ever saw and I don't tell them any different.
Over the years I by trail and error and a lot of hard work and
suffereing that if you don't keep at least six coats of varnish on
wood you will work your rear end off trying to keep it bright. I
sometimes have a crack in the varnish water gets in and the wood
turns white. I sand or scrape that spot off and put on several coats
only in that area usually 3 coats per day and that way you don't
need to sand between coats. I do that two days in a row and then
sand lightly to smooth the finish and then a lite sanding of the
whole hatch and one more coat of varnish. At that point I am up to
6 or 7 coats of varnish. I never take the varnish off completely
and have had boats with 15 to twenty coats of varnish which I only
coat once a year usully in the spring. I also keep some tung oil on
board and if the varnish begins to dull a little from the sun I just
rub a little on with a rage. It takes about 30 minutes to wipe it
all down. You don't have to take it off in the spring to varnish as
most of the tounge will have come off by then hit the varnish with
fine paper and varnsh and you good untill next year. A single
Saturday is way more than enough to refinsh it all. Inside I just
wipe a litt of the same oil on once a year and after the 2nd time
the inside of you boat has taken on the look of a fine hand rubbed
gun stock. Rich and beautiful. I buy tongue oil from Grizzly
on line it runs a bout $40.00 a pint but is very thick and I cut
mine down to about 1/2 strength I would say it should last at least
3 years of used properly. Remember that teak does not hold varnish
as well as mahogany due to the oil in the teak. if you replace your
external bright work with teak you will spend a lot more time
refinishing. The only good purposeful uses of teak is for
battleship decks and hull planking on wooden boats where it is only
scrubbed with a holy stone and never varnished.

--
Doug Pollard
Albin Vega Sea Legs 2225
KK4YGO


On 07/02/2014 11:31 AM, Tim
tim_klynn@... [AlbinVega] wrote: