Friday, May 28, 2010

Where do you work?

When you live on a boat, there is no garage, or workshop, or even a basement that you can take your projects to. You have only three choices:
  • work out on the dock
  • work out on deck
  • work inside, where you live
And, sadly, too often the weather removes the first two choices. Leaving:
  • work inside, where you live
This might seem intrusive. but the fact of the matter is that I enjoy the smell of varnish, and there is a huge satisfaction in getting things accomplished. Done.

With that in mind, having the projects right there where you live is an advantage. While you are making dinner, you can be thinking about the best order for varnishing those panels. And while you are eating, you can think about how exactly to varnish the wheel inside (answer: suspend a short piece of stainless rail tubing on a rope from the overhead. The wheel spins nicely on it while you apply varnish). You don't waste any time going to the shop, and you can go to bed 1 minute after cleaning your paint brush. You might be amazed at how much you can accomplish under these circumstances.

Assuming you can get past the chaos, of course.
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6 comments:

e said...

mmm, paint fumes

Drew Frye said...

I have a neighbor that replaced the beautiful nav station table top with and old plank, specifically to create a no-guilt work surface. While doing a refit. The nice top replaced the plank when he was finished. I thought it was a pretty smart move.

Painting requirements like that often come up when on the hard. On a catamaran, there is a fourth option: under the bridge deck! It also has the advantage of being out of the beating sun.

Robert Salnick said...

e: I suppose I am weird in other ways too, but I like the smell of organic solvents and to me, curing varnish has a rich leathery smell.

Drew: That was a wise idea!

bob

Mike said...

Because we are still at the marina I have adopted one of the picnic tables as my work bench. I had been out there with a box load of tools on almost a daily basis. people come by and ask "what are you working on today?"

audeojude said...

what are you using to refinish the cabinet doors? I'm assuming some of that is interior wood.. It looks a lot lighter colored that valkyr and we are wanting to lighten up the wood inside. I haven't figured out a plan for how to lighten and then treat the interior yet.

Robert Salnick said...

Scott -

Eolian's interior was originally finished with some kind of "hand rubbed" oil, which was tinted red a little. It had failed, miserably. But I found that Minwax Polyshades Colonial Maple (it's a colored urethane varnish) was a very close match - so close that if I sanded off the worst of the failed oil and then applied a coat of the Polyshades, it masked the difference between the places with remaining oil finish, and those places that were bare wood.

So: 1 coat of Polyshades, and probably 2-3 coats of satin varnish to get a smooth finish. Light sanding with 220 after the first coat of satin over the color.

bob

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