Oil treatment & varnishing

The time has come to apply some oil and some varnish. As I have mentioned at several places on the other pages, I use Owatrol D1 oil to saturate the wood with before varnishing. I could have used ordinary linseed oil, but it takes an awfully long time to harden, so I chose the more modern blend oil.

I am working on applying oil to the inside of the wheelhouse. I need to caulk the deck before I can apply oil on the outside, so that will have to wait a bit. A lot of oil is needed to saturate the wood, at the time of writing, I have used 5 liters of oil in the wheelhouse alone. The wood gets very dark - it looks a lot lighter in the photos because of the flash, in reality, it is a lot darker. I have only toned the oil slightly with stain to get a uniformly reddish color.

October 18, 2009:
This week is fall holiday, so I have been full time in the boat tent. I have done a lot of work, and have now come so far that the roof can get oil. I hope to apply oil to the rest of the superstructure oil next weekend.

November 22, 2009:
Unfortunately, I do not get to write so much right now, but the work in the tent is progressing - slowly but steadily.

I have now finished the oil treatment and staining. It took approx. 15 layers of oil before the wood was saturated, but in some places, some extra layers were needed. I have also oil-treated the Masonite on the roofs, and one would think that oil-cured Masonite would not draw oil, but that is not the case at all, on the contrary. I had to apply more than 20 layers to saturate the plates.

I am now well on my way to varnishing the inside of the wheelhouse, and it is a major piece of work. It takes approx. 6 hours for each layer of Epifanes, and the sanding between the layers takes the same amount of time. So it will take a while before I get it finished - I just finished the 4th layer and I reckon 6 layers will be enough on the inside.

February 27, 2010:
I am now well on my way to varnishing the loose parts, and have, among other things given the steering wheel a much-needed overhaul. One thing is for sure, it would be a very expensive steering wheel if I had to pay hourly wages to have it done. I think it has taken at least 30 hours to clean and sand it - a bit crazy when you can buy a new steering wheel for DKK 1000. But this steering wheel belongs to the boat, so, therefore, it just has to be like this - I now also think that it has become quite nice with the mahogany wreath and ash spokes. I have countersunk the screws and plugged the holes with lighter mahogany, I think it looks nicer than the visible brass screws.

The oil treatment of the loose parts is largely over, and I am in the process of varnishing. There are quite a few items to varnish, so it will probably take a few weeks.

April 19, 2010:
Sand, sand, sand, varnish, and re-sand. This is how the last many weeks have been, which is why I have not written so much here on the website - there is not much to tell about it. But it progresses nicely, at the time of writing, I need to give the superstructure one more layer and repair a few places inside. Approx. half of the small parts are finished, but I take that in parallel with the work in the tent. So all in all, I hope to finish varnishing within the next 14 days.