Refinish leaky 50 you old wooden sailfish sailboat

[Mike Andries]

My wife’s family has a couple of sailfish boats they made back I the 1960s.  One leaks and I am working g to seal and refinish it.

 

1. Will basecoats of epoxy work as a sealer? Can I finish with Spar Varish over the epoxy base coat?

2. do I need to sand down to bare wood before applying the epoxy? Ser picture for current sanded state.

 

Thanks in advance

Mike

[andrew donald]

Mike, this forum is specifically for the Aroha boat. You will get much quicker although at times conflicting advice on the WoodenBoat magazine forum here. You’ll have to register first though.
http://forum.woodenboat.com

 

On the home OCH forum pages you can find videos about wooden boat finishing and repair.

 

personally I’d be sanding to 120 grit, fixing leaks with epoxy and fibreglass tape. Done well the tape will “disappear”into finish. Wet area with neat epoxy, apply tape, then fill weave of tape with a few coats of epoxy.  I’d imagine the leaks are along seams and to find them, is there a way to put some water inside hull so you tip it to see where it comes out and therefore you know where to repair. use a good paint/varnish system to get em back on water. You could epoxy first but it’ll need two or three coats then paint system on top of that. Just plain epoxy coats can crack with movement of underlying wood and so letting moisture in. Epoxy itself isn’t 100% waterproof, more resistant, nor is it UV proof. . Make sure when out of water hulls are covered to reduce weathering.. Varnish will require upwards of prob 5 coats to make it durable and it’ll prob req annual maintenance coats. It looses its UV resistance gradually. There is a school of thought NOT to epoxy with overcoats of varnish, apparently makes it difficult to re-coat so therefore just varnish. Paint will be much more durable.

 

[Mike Andries]

Thanks. Will check the other forum. First time here’s got confused.

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