Sole Project

I'm into the fourth day of my varnishing act.

I removed six panels from my cockpit sole, washed them, let them dry overnight, then started the laborious job of sanding.  The panels are  veneer over 12mm marine ply, in strips separated by black caulking.  In character with the rest of the boat, the panels are scarred and mottled but are tough as nails and have taken a lot of punishment from overflowing oily bilge water and exhibit no hint of delamination or deterioration. 

I had never worked with this material before and without advice at hand (too lazy to seek advice, actually) I started to prepare the surfaces.  I got good results using a narrow paint scraper, managing to take whole strips of the old varnish at a time.  However, I found that working the scraper too hard damaged the wood so I had to be satisfied with scraping off whatever I could and then sanding with 240 grit paper using a block.

This took hours of monotonous work and on the second day Ib and Yadranka from Aeolus stopped by and suggested that I use their sander.  That evening I visited their boat and got the sander but I have yet to use it because by the time I got it I had finished sanding the panels the hard and primitive way.

The next question was whether to use gloss or satin varnish.  I was able to make that choice because that day a boating handyman sold me a quart of satin varnish for half price.  He had recently purchased it and used a small amount for one of his jobs.  In the end I settled on gloss because rightly or wrongly I  think that it is more durable than satin.  I'll use the satin for the rest of the interior woodwork.

The photos show the six panels after two coats of varnish.  Tomorrow I'll brush on a third and last coat.

The are a total of 15 sole panels of various jigsaw sizes and shapes. Today I took out four more and washed them so that they will be dry when I am ready to start working on them.

I figure that if I keep the pressure on I will finish this project in a week or 8 days.  I need to keep a cracking pace because I expect to vacate the apartment and move back into the boat on 27 Sept.

There must be some sort of fishing tournament going on this weekend because at about 6 PM recreational fishing boats began to arrive with happy and contented people of all ages.  If that was the Mexican middle class that I was seeing they were doing very well, with their well equipped boats, top quality fishing  gear, and 4WD's to for pulling their boats out of the water.  Many of the boats are panga-style and they are kept on my jetty with their bows in V-sections along the side of the jetty.   I wouldn't keep my boat like that because it could result in hull damage at the bow, but it seems to work for most of them.