T&T: wood interior care

[Tom Hitchcock]

would appreciate any suggestions on care to apply to the thin wood veneer
finish as is common on the Tiawan built trawlers of the 80's. I believe
the finish is satin varnish and is worn down and darkened in areas; will
a furniture polish like Liquid Gold work? Or is it best to sand and apply
more varnish. I'm concerned about sanding the veneer off? Tom, REPRIEVE
PT 42 Sedan
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[Ron Rogers]

It's the darkened areas that are the problem. I'm not sure that anyone on
this list has successfully bleached these veneers back. The darkness is
usually due to water intrusion as opposed to oxidation. If you wish to match
and blend in with the existing satin varnish, I have had effortless success
with Tung oil using a rag to apply it.

Ron Rogers

[C. Marin Faure]

>the finish is satin varnish and is worn down and darkened in areas;
will
a furniture polish like Liquid Gold work? Or is it best to sand and
apply
more varnish. I'm concerned about sanding the veneer off?

You're correct in that you run a real risk of sanding through the
veneer, which on many boats is very thin. This happened to a friend
and it didn't take much sanding to get there. Teak usually gets
lighter with age and UV light. The teak (not veneer) in our boat
under a clock and barometer we removed and also an autopilot control
panel we removed was many shades darker simply because it had been
protected from the light for so many years.

If had a darker splotch than the surrounding wood but the splotch
area gets the same exposure to light as the surrounding teak, the
dark stain it is usually a sign of moisture problems at one time or
some other or wear problems that have saturated the wood with oils,
dirt, etc. From what I have read on the Grand Banks owners forum by
people with a lot of professional boat restoration/repair experience,
trying to stain or bleach teak to match surrounding teak is a major
hit or miss proposition and almost never works. According to them it
is easier to try to stain darker than bleach lighter although they
say the results are rarely satisfactory either way.

You could remove the veneer and install new veneer, probably more
than you want to do at this point. But since the chances are that
whatever has darkened the wood has darkened it all the way through
the veneer, you run the risk of chasing it with sandpaper all the way
through to the subsurface. So approach sanding with great care......

____________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington

[Richard Tomkinson]

> a furniture polish like Liquid Gold work? Or is it best to sand and apply
> more varnish. I'm concerned about sanding the veneer off? Tom, REPRIEVE
> PT 42 Sedan

I suspect you will get lots of responses on this one.
My personal regime is to use Liquid Gold. Have been using it for 24 years,
no downside so far. Once a year. Never sand. In areas that are problematic
meaning they have lost color or changed color because of moisture, clean it
as much as you can. Then use a small amount of original Cetol, yes the puky
orange one, and take a scrap piece of veneer or teak and lay down some
experimental lines with a rag and diluted Cetol (with thinner). What you are
looking for is the right dilution to come up with the color. When you have
it then try some blending (very easy). Then go for it. You only need a very
small amount of course as it is mostly thinner. Second coat is ok but you
are going for color match. Protection comes after in the form of a much
diluted varnish, then liquid Gold. All this is easy, don't worry about dry
times etc. Just go for the color. (Do not varnish or you will change the
reflectivity and have to sand.)
The result will be invisible.
Richard

[Rich Gano]

Like many teak interiors, my boat has a variety of teak veneer
installations. Much of it is actually thin veneer plywood, as I found out
recently when I had the 37-year old inside door skin replaced on the port
cabin door.

Marin's discussion piece on this topic is on the mark - once you have the
damage, there is little that can be done to restore it to original. As a
preventive measure, I like to LIGHTLY hand sand the still-good veneer on
areas like the lower station console with very fine sand paper and apply a
coat of clear semi-gloss or satin varnish. Other areas get varied
treatment.

I have a half sheet of 1/4 teak veneer and some smaller pieces of extremely
thin veneer I can use to simply cover over the bad areas. Cut carefully to
match the area and apply with industrial contact cement. Apply clear
penetrating epoxy sealer, and you'll not soon have a moisture penetration
problem. Yes, it won't match the original teak, and I don't care that much,
and as Marin said, matching teak is an imperfect art form anyway.

Rather than try to repair the small ugly stained and damaged veneer on the
exterior cabin sides directly under the large windows, I simply smoothed the
area (only a couple of inches high and a couple of feet long at each
location) and painted them GB beige. I like the look fine. Some fool in
the past had cut up a mirror to fit the areas and glued them over the
veneer. When the mirror pieces went bad, ripping them off really screwed up
the underlying teak veneer.

I had the same professional who redid my port door skin redo the horizontal
lid to our dish locker. I was a simple flat surface with rounded strips of
teak attached to the edges to finish it off. Simply laying teak veneer over
the top would have resulted in a mismatch at the edges; so I had him fashion
very small fiddles to cover the junction of the top veneer and those rounded
trim pieces - came out functional and nice looking.

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42 #295)
Southport, FL (near Panama City)

[Scott H.E. Welch]

"Tom Hitchcock" <tomh...@TELESHARE.NET> writes:
>would appreciate any suggestions on care to apply to the thin wood veneer
>finish as is common on the Tiawan built trawlers of the 80's. I believe
>the finish is satin varnish and is worn down and darkened in areas; will
>a furniture polish like Liquid Gold work? Or is it best to sand and apply
>more varnish. I'm concerned about sanding the veneer off?

There is another solution, and it's what I did on Island Eagle. It might
sound heretical, but have you considered paint? Typically the panels are
veneer and the trim is solid wood (teak in your case, mahogany in mine). The
mahogany on IE had faded to a particularly unattractive puke-yellow. I decide
to remove the trim, paint almost all of the panels a nice white, and then
refinish and reinstall the trim. Yes, it's a different look (more
"Herreschoff" than "Taiwan Trawler") but I found that it brightened the
cabins substantially. I also painted some of the mahogany doors.

Just an idea,

Scott Welch

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn
out." - John Wooden

[Joel Wilkins]

Scott writes:
There is another solution, and it's what I did on Island Eagle.

It might sound heretical, but have you considered paint? ... Yes, it's a

different look (more "Herreschoff" than "Taiwan Trawler") but I found that it
brightened the cabins substantially. I also painted some of the mahogany
doors.

Reply...
The PO on my boat did precisely the same thing. Painted some,
not all, of the panels white and left the trim natural. The interior is very
bright and allows for more flexibility in other colors for upholstery etc. The
maintenance is minimal to boot. Not sure I would have had the courage to do it
myself, but I like the look.

Two votes for paint...
Joel Wilkins
m/s Miss
Magoo
Columbia 45
S. pasadena, FL

[C. Marin Faure]

Interestingly enough, the earlier Grand Banks boats were made with a
combination of paint and teak in their cabins. It was not until the
later boats that they started using teak veneer on the cabin walls
and bulkheads for the "all teak" look. So our '73 boat has teak
cabinetry in the form of the helm console, floor mounted and hanging
cabinets, drawers, window valances, cabin trim under the windows, the
doors, and so on. But the wall and bulkhead panels, which are
mahogany in our boat, are all painted what's called "Grand Banks
Beige" which is a light tan with just a hint of green. Some people
consider it an old fashioned color, but like clothes, fashion goes
around in big circles and this sort of color is becoming popular
again. The '91 GB36 we chartered had the "all teak" look, and while
it was very nice, the interior of our much older GB36 is lighter and
more "open" feeling. So natural wood is not always the ultimate
appearance when it comes to a boat interior. In fact I think the
painted panels make the teak trim and cabinetry look all that much
more impressive. And they are a hell of a lot easier to maintain or
repair if they get gouged or stained or damaged in some other way.
Much easier to match paint than to try to match a natural wood shade,
particularly on wood that's some 37 years old now.

____________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington

[Andy Woods]

> Interestingly enough, the earlier Grand Banks boats were made with a
> combination of paint and teak in their cabins.

Our boat was exactly the same way. Very little veneer, teak trim over and
under the windows, solid teak helm station, teak cabinets, painted cabin
walls. The Admiral didn't like the Grand Banks beige so we painted the walls
with an Interlux paint called Matterhorn White. It's mostly white with a hint
of blue that you can't really see. This really brightened up the boat and
highlighted the teak trim. The forward cabin is still GB beige so you can
really see the difference. As another poster said the painted walls allow for
different schemes with the cushions and curtains.

Andy Woods
Grand Folly
1970 Grand Banks 36 Classic
Blades, DE.
grand...@hotmail.com

[Drew Lippert]

Rich

My 1978 42 GB #556 came from Florida with quite a bit of water damage. Then
the climate change to PNW caused a lot of veneer to delaminate.

I'm in the middle of having much of it replaced. It is a bit of expense but
not too bad.. Some areas we are just cementing new veneer over old ,
reapplying trim and good to go.

Ended up doing floor as well.. Floor Rot under the port door sill and freezer
added a lot to the bill.

Once done, I'll send pics..

Drew Lippert
@Westerly
1978 42GB #556

[Rich Gano]

I go right along with Marin about the Grand Banks interior color/veneer
scheme for our earlier boats. The "Herreshoff look" Scott mentions is so
KEWL. The all-teak interiors I have seen in other boats are a bit
overwhelming, not to mention hard to keep up. I used to repaint interior
bulkheads with a satin enamel to match the original GB beige, but then I'd
have to be super careful about spills and over-paint. Then I went to the
"dark" side and discovered I could get the color matched well enough at the
local home paint store in latex-based paint. Using this stuff in my boat
was a "liberating experience." It is easy to use and clean up and seems to
last and clean well with little of the age cracking of straight enamel, and
I don't have to open the boat up for a month to let the enamel finish
off-gassing.

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42 #295)
Southport, FL (near Panama City)

[Randy Pickelmann]

Rich wrote,"Then I went to the "dark" side and discovered I could get the

color matched well enough at the local home paint store in latex-based paint.
"

I know that a number of Krogen owners have done the same. Is semi-gloss the
surface of choice?

Regards,
Randy Pickelmann
MORNING STAR
lying in Clearwater, FL
www.morningstar.talkspot.com

[Rich Gano]

Yes, it gives a surface quite close to original, especially if you use those
itty bitty rollers.

[C. Marin Faure]

>Is semi-gloss the surface of choice?

It depends solely on the owner's preference. Some people like semi-
gloss but just as many seem to like gloss. We have repainted some of
the spaces in our boat with the original color used by American
Marine when they built the boat. We used Interlux Brightside Grand
Banks Beige which is a gloss paint. Petit (I think) also makes this
color in gloss but they have additives that can make their paint semi-
gloss. In any event, we like the look of gloss but you do have to be
more careful in applying it because brush strokes and other
imperfections are more obvious. We use the roller-brush-tip method
and this works extremely well to produce a blemish-free surface.

We used the gloss first in the aft head as it's easier to wipe down
and keep clean. A previous owner used gloss in the aft cabin (same
GB beige color) and while we were at first not sure we liked it we
have grown to prefer it to the semi-gloss that was used in the
forward cabin (which may be the original paint, I don't know). The
gloss makes the spaces seem brighter. But I don't think I'd want a
white interior that was gloss. That could be a bit much. So I think
it depends on your own preferences and the color you're going to use.

____________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington

[Rich Werner]

Does anyone have comparison experience with Dyno and Interstate 4D
batteries, both standard and deep cycle?

Rich
______________________________
Rich & Laura Werner
GB32-277, 1972 "Woodie"