What's the Point?

Here it is more than three weeks since I began refinishing the teak and I'm still not anywhere near being done.  The varnish takes a full 24 hours in between coats and time becomes a major factor.  We have four good coats on the Port side, three across the stern but only two on the Starboard side.  I only have weekends for this and weather has been a problem.  Between the rain and cold/damp weather I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle.

This past weekend I had five full days to play.  I'm normally off Friday through Sunday and Veterans Day fell on a Tuesday so I took Monday off to take advantage of a streak of nice weather.  Friday through Sunday were clear but the temperatures barely got above 50 degrees.  Friday and part of Saturday I sanded and cleaned the teak on the Starboard side from the bowsprit back to the gate near the cockpit.  I got one coat of varnish down late in the afternoon and it looked good.  Sunday I had to wait until later in the afternoon to lay down a second coat because it was still a bit tacky.  I added a coat across the stern while I waited.  I finished the starboard side coat by 1600 and called it a day.  Monday I got up early and went out to see how things looked.  All the varnish I had laid down on Sunday was fogged and patchy looking.  All of it.  Ugh!  I envisioned having to strip everything back down to bare wood and starting all over again.  I'm running out of time though and really cold weather is right around the corner.

I Googled "fogged varnish" and found that it's caused by the varnish not having enough time to "flash off" and dry before dew settles on it.  According to Wikipedia "The dew point is the saturation temperature for water in air. The dew point is associated with relative humidity. A high relative humidity implies that the dew point is closer to the current air temperature. Relative humidity of 100% indicates the dew point is equal to the current temperature and that the air is maximally saturated with water".  When varnishing, the dew point must be at least 20 degrees less than the air temperature or you're gonna have problems.  At least that's what I read.  On Sunday the air temperature was around 51 degrees and I suspect the dew point was around 40 or higher.  I read on and found that the finish can be saved by scuffing the surface to allow the trapped moisture to evaporate.  Of course this requires warm temperatures.  Fortunately the temperatures for Monday and Tuesday were forecast to be in the 60's and clear.  Perfect!

Monday morning Cheri and I talked ourselves into stripping down the teak on the cockpit coaming so everything would be done at the same time.  I sanded down my fogged varnish and let it sit all day while we worked on the coaming.  I figured things would be perfect by Tuesday for laying down a coat of varnish and having everything protected before bad weather settled in around the middle of the week.  While Cheri sanded the coaming I worked on re-bedding the stanchions.

Before laying down any varnish on the Port side I had taped off the areas where the stanchions mount.  Now with four coats down I had to run a blade around the edge of the tape to remove it but underneath I found clean and bare wood.  Next I taped off the same spot and re-traced the base of the stanchion.  This time I removed the tape inside the cut and left the outer area covered.  Now when I install the stanchion the sealant can ooze out onto the tape and not ruin my beautiful teak.  Cheri had already polished up four of the stanchions and had them ready to go.  I squeezed 5200 adhesive all over the bottom of the base and up inside the stanchion a few inches, ran the bolts into place and lightly screwed them into position with just enough pressure to have the sealant push out all around the stanchion base.  I wanted to let the adhesive cure first before going back and tightening them down all the way to get a really good seal.  With Cheri's help I got all four stanchions re-bedded.  Once we get the rest of the stanchions installed I'll replace the life lines. We've decided to go with bare stainless wire instead of the white plastic coated stuff.  We're also replacing the life lines around the cockpit with hard stainless railing.  I have all the parts I need for that on hand so that project is ready to take off.  The hard railing will make a better place to mount our grill and the table we use for cleaning fish.  We'll be able to sit on our newly refinished teak coaming (maybe on a towel or something) and cook up that Mahi-mahi we just caught.  Can't wait!


Tuesday I had some touch-up sanding to do on the coaming so I took care of that before starting the varnish.  It was still kinda chilly out and after suffering the fogged varnish I wanted to wait for things to warm up a little more anyway.  Around 1000 I was ready to go at it and collected my brush and can of varnish and headed for the bowsprit.  I just happened to glance out towards the breakwater and discovered a wall of fog quickly descending on our creek.  Fog = high dew point, maximum saturation, 100% humidity.  Grrrrrrr.  I can't believe this!  I put away my varnishing gear and moved on to my next project.  Unfortunately I may be done with varnishing for quite a while.  Winter is coming on strong and temperatures are projected to be in the low 40's and 30's for at least the next week.  If I could just get a few more coats on it'd probably be OK for the Winter but I think even that's gonna be a challenge.

So.....my next project was having the anchors galvanized.  Last week I took them into Baltimore Galvanizing which is located in a heavily industrialized area near Essex.  They had a minimum charge of $250 but I couldn't get them to divulge whether that was for weight or volume or what.  I figured I could get a few other boat owners to go in on it with me and we could split the cost.  This is a bad time of year to inspire folks to galvanize their anchors though.  Seems that most everyone is concentrating on getting their boats pulled and having them winterized.  OK, so $250 is still not so bad.  That's about what I'd pay for new anchors and it doesn't make sense to just throw them out and replace them with pretty ones.  I can get my 20' of chain on the Danforth re-done at the same time.  The shop called me on Monday and said they were ready to be picked up.  I drove out there on Tuesday in the fog and loaded them in the trunk.  I talked to the dude for a few minutes about the cleaning process.  He said they acid dip them first, fresh water rinse and then put them in the galvanizing bath.  He said the chain took two days in the acid bath because it had paint on it and they need it to be bare steel for the galvanizing to work properly.  I asked about the minimum charge and he said it really depended on the job, the size of the parts, weight, etc.  He thought I coulda thrown in a few more anchors though, no problem.  The anchors and chain look brand new.  I'm really pleased with the results and feel it was money well spent.  Now we'll see how long it lasts and if I still feel the same way in another year or two.

So, here we are.  We're making progress here and there, even if it's not as much as I had hoped for.  Even if the varnish project is stalled I can continue to work on the stanchions and railing.  My project list intrudes on my sleep almost every night but if I keep chiseling away at it I can keep it at bay.  I have a plan.  The ultimate goal is to get the water maker installed this Winter.  To do that I need to install some cabinets in the aft cabin to make room for the stuff located where I want to put the high pressure pump.  The cabinets will also make a spot for our tools which in turn will open up some more storage around the boat.  I have about three months to get these things done and install a single side band radio too.  Should be do-able.  Then next March we'll pull the boat, repaint the bottom and finish up the teak.  Then splash and run.  That'll be it.