A Good Stripper

The replacement gunwales that came with the canoe had a coat of varnish. It seemed to be only one or two coats, and applied OK, a few runs, and built up areas. It seemed to be hard, so I'm not sure it was spar varnish. So, you might be thinking that's good, it will protect the wood. There are lots of boats with varnished wood. Yup, that's true, there are. It's called bright work, and is usually a high maintenance item. And it's also a surface coating. It scratches, and wears off, then needs to be re-applied. I happen to like bright work, but for this project it just didn't seem to be worth the future upkeep. SO, I decided to remove the varnish, and treat the wood with Watco Teak Oil. This is a penetrating wood treatment, it goes into the wood, and doesn't build up on the surface, which can cause another problem with fit of the parts.
How to get the varnish off? Since it wasn't too thick, I though it would be easy to sand off. So I got the sanding supplies ready.

I had more sandpaper but you get the idea. And, yes I planned on getting thirsty with the dust flying around. I started hand sanding with 100 grit, didn't want to start too aggressive. After about 6 inches the paper clogged, and didn't do much except to make me tired. So I went to 60, didn't have 80 which I would have preferred. That worked better, it didn't clog until 8 inches. I have 64 FEET to strip. This was going to be tougher than I thought. Time to break out the power. First up, 1/4 sheet pad sander. Same clogging problem. OK then. Lets try the random orbit, 100 grit, the roughest I have, but on the RO, it usually does pretty good. And it did, for a foot and a half, then it clogged and just spun. I used a couple new pads, same story. This will just not due, it took 2 hours to do three feet. This will just not do at all.
Now, where did I get the idea to do this? It seems to be the preferred method that the people on Paddling.net like. Now Paddling .net is an online community of paddlers, both canoe and kayak. No matter what your problem or question, you can get an answer. You'll also get many opinions, there are many ways to skin a cat, as they say. But you will get an answer. The discussions can get heated at times, so it pays to have a thick skin. When you sign up, and I suggest you do if you like paddling, you can list an email address, so you can communicate directly to an other person. It helps when you ask a question and it gets lost in the back and forth (stay tuned for more on that). Many people recommend using Watco oil.
Back to the gunwales. the next day I stopped at my favorite store to get me some chemical paint stripper.
Being that shewhomustbeobeyed uses no pesticides, or other lawn chemicals, like RoundUp to kill the poison ivy, I knew the right stuff to buy was the citrus based stripper. Well, I didn't get that, but I did get water based stuff. And some stripping pads, which are just course, open scouring pads. And some of the blue rubber gloves. The label said it works in 5 -10 minutes, and cleans up with water.
I'm happy to say the stripper worked really well, he gloves, not so good. Ten minutes, and the varnish came off when scrubbed with the pad. Which clogged three quarters he way through the first piece. ARRRGGG. The gloves tore after a few feet, I'm going to use a lot of them. But I decided to POR. After the stripper does it's job, and you scrap/scrub the varnish off, you wash with water. The stuff didn't smell too bad, with no stong ordor. In fact you had to get close to smell it at all. I did two halves one day, and two another. They still need sanding, because the water wash raised the grain of the wood, but it got 99% of the varnish off.
Now I have to sand, and apply a few coats of the oil. Then everything will be ready to install the gunwales.
I took some more pictures with my sons(the Eagle Scout) new camera. I didn't read the manual.

Till next time, fair winds.

A MOMENTOUS DAY

Monday, May 18 2009.
My son became an EAGLE SCOUT.
I am very proud of his accomplishment.
Some things are more important than fixing a beat up canoe.

CLOSE YOUR EYES......

The canoe came complete with painter rings, whether they came stock from the factory, dealer, or the prior owner put them on, I don't know. But they come in handy, and I would have added them if it didn't have them. They are also know as tug eyes .
Both the bow and stern have them.
Bow;










Stern:




The problem is that they go through the hull of the boat. They go through the flotation chambers. These are the things that will keep the boat floating when it gets swamped, it keeps it from sinking, a good thing. If you look at Tug Eyes they have a tube that goes from on side of the hull to the other, this prevents water from getting into the float chambers. Even though the float chambers are filled with foam, I think it's a good idea to keep water out, if at all possible.

So, to remedy this situation, the decks had to be removed, you can see from previous posts that this isn't a big deal. Two quick saw cuts, and the half rotted decks are gone. Not really gone, until I make new ones, but off the boat.

There is an empty space between the flotation foam and the hull, bow and stern. The holes for the painter rings go through this space, hence the problem.

You would see it in a picture, but for some strange reason the camera didn't want to take a picture of it. I don't know why. You see, it's one of those digital cameras. And for an old celluloid guy like me, these cameras can be daunting when they don't work the way I want them too. It's also my wife's camera, she uses it a lot, I use it once in a while, when she is with me, so I never really felt the need to RTFM.
My first camera was a Kodak Brownie, which was kind of a generic name for several models from Kodak. It used 620 roll film, the negative was about 2 x 2 inches, but the camera had very little in the way of controls. The film went to the drug store to be developed, black and white of course. There is something to be said about not having to have film developed, and the easy image manipulation of the digital age. You take a picture, and can view it in seconds. No more trips to the drug store, or film processor, or one hour photo. And with some places where you can email an image and have it printed in any number of predetermined size, the balance is almost a landslide to digital. I guess I need to catch up.

Two kill to birds with one stone, I decided to fill the space with a wedge shaped block of wood, pressure treated of course so it will take longer to rot, and attached with thickened epoxy. The blocks are to be placed below the gunwales and deck plates. The stern should be OK, but the bow may have a problem, it may be too low. I'll find out when I drill through it. The filler for the epoxy is sawdust, I thought I had finer stuff than I used, but that's the way it goes, and I'm not making a show piece, and have nothing to lose. I'm also hoping that it adds a little more strength to the stems.

One of the wood blocks:














The bow, after filling.
















The flotation foam and the placement of the block.















Hey, now that I have my reading glasses, maybe I can catch up on some long put off camera manual reading.