Varnishing pleasure
Finally! My favorite part of spring maintenance - varnishing. I really mean it, I enjoy varnishing, especially when it goes smooth. What I don’t like is all preparations for varnishing: abrading/keying the surface, vacuuming, de-greasing etc.
I planned to finish all these preparation steps yesterday but life dictated otherwise. I had to do them today which put me in high pace to finish everything before early afternoon - best time for varnish.
Practice shows that on warm, sunny days - like today - one should wait with varnishing until air starts to cool down resulting in boat hull being warmer than surrounding. Not too warm because then we run into condensation problem but a bit warmer. This will inhibit degasing of wood (if any) and increase probability that varnish will sit nice and firm.
My own theory is that varnishing never happens in the morning anyway because there always are many jobs to finish before I can grab the brush and start spreading the syrup. One other observation is that it pays to start on Sunday afternoon, around 16. What happens is that most people are going home (Monday-stress syndrome) and boatyard becomes silent place. No more cars driving by and rising dust clouds, no curious by-passers - perfect calmness.
I vacuumed the whole boat in the morning, including bilge areas which accumulated wood dust after winter work. Someone took away aluminum platform which I wanted to use during varnishing so I had to construct temporary platforms for reaching whale-deck. Cleaning the hull with paint thinner followed.
First went deck structures - hatches and main sail system. I instantly noticed that the varnish got too thick. It did not flow correctly and was dragging on the brush. I carried on as I already started, besides - hatches are horizontal so they will not develop “curtains” even with slightly thicker layer of varnish. It will just take a bit longer to cure but thicker layer offers better protection. It is always a tradeoff.
Moving to the hull. I always start with whale decks - they are small enough to get feeling for proper varnish dilution. Any faults are less visible. I diluted the varnish to get it flow better and carried on.
It goes very quickly. It must go quickly otherwise the wet edge is no longer wet and new area does not blend with the previously varnished part. I used to call varnishing “meditation with a brush” but it is more of a sprint than slow meditation. Each area must not take more than 20s to spread the varnish. That’s my way of doing it and it proves to work quite fine.
I run out of thinner so in the end of this session the varnish got thickened again, resulting in visible brush traces in few places. They will hopefully merge before all cures but before next time I need to secure enough of thinner.
That went smooth - just a few “curtains” below some fittings, otherwise I’m pleased with the result.
What is left to be done:
bottom paint
paying seems with Farm (to avoid launching drama)
flushing the engine with fresh water - to purge glycol before the launch
Time to book launching.