Brightening the Brightwork

Well we’ve been spending a good amount of time on ol’ Gnar Girl now that the weather is finally warming up.  It has been just lovely.  It usually plays out that we spend time on the boat doing a project that has been researched thoroughly (Erik’s so good at that) and afterwards we come home and he starts researching another project! So we finally decided on what to do with our bright work (exterior wood) and ordered some Cetol.  When we got out there last Saturday we decided to get right to it, and I started sanding while Erik went to pick up the Cetol.  We chose Marine Cetol, a dark oil-based stain that is lower maintenance and still looks great.  The plan is to apply two coats of Marine Cetol, and two coats of Cetol Gloss to give it a good shine.  So there I was so excited to put this stuff on our poor neglected wood.  You could tell no one had paid much attention to the teak in at least 5 years (maybe more!) and it was very “silver” with deep ridges worn.

So there I was sanding my little heart out but really not getting the ridges out.  Erik finally comes back to me with more sanding supplies (I was only working with one of those sanding sponge and a couple sheets of sandpaper) and he gave it a go.  Looked better than mine but the work was intensive and still wasn’t getting the results we were wanting so we made a trip to home depot for a sander! Hoorah! it was wonderful.  Erik ate through some sandpaper and we made such a mess (this keyboard still has sawdust on it as I type).  Then we rinsed the wood, let it dry, taped it up, and started applying Cetol.

I was instantly in love.  It looks so good! We went back and applied one more coat the following day, so now we just need to do the 2 gloss coats.  We broke up the bright work  into sections as well to do this project.  The flat wide pieces in the cockpit we were able to sand with ease with the sander, however the curved and narrow handrails will present a problem.  Our solution will be to just clean the teak, and then apply Cetol.  We read somewhere that should work, so we shall see!  This has definitely  been my favorite project so far, I love being able to SEE the work that I have done.

I’ve also been enjoying gardening at home.  I recently planted this clematis and love it!

We had a blast at Dollywood! I would live there if Dolly would let me.  She is such an inspiration.

And I like this picture of this Ewok so here: enjoy.

I guess the next project Erik plans on working on is re-wiring the mast.  However this may prove to be a more difficult than anticipated task.  We may potentially have to remove the mast.  But I’ll try to keep you posted!