a #%*n bright work question

[barbaree]

Ok, I'm a noob and its my first post. I've come to this forum before and found answers I was after with out asking.

not this time...

I run the Tbird program at CWB in Seattle. Over the last 5 years my crew and I have taken a free boat and turned her into one of the best wooden Thunderbirds in the PNW.

Granted, I have amazing resourses of arcane wooden boat knoledge there to mine but I'm stumped on this.

When we wooded the deckhouse and coamings 4 years ago, we decided to go with the Tuf Shield system for the brightwork. (deckhouse, coamings, hand rails, hatch tracks, toe rails, tiller, etc) It has performed beautifully in our wet and cold winters & bright warm summers. It has been elastic in the wet and suffered sun well.

After getting through the 6 coat first year set up we have applied a layer in the spring and fall after light sandings. The brightwork always looked great from 5 feet away which is our standard for a boat that gets over a hundred race starts a season. The brightork gets a lot of dings that we seal up with q-tips diped in it. Love the stuff, and now I cant get it...

I've been out of the gloss since spring, and applied something called Cyrstal on reliable recomendation then. Stuff didnt stick. I'm a guy, but I did follow the instructions.
I will sand that layer off but I'm not going to wood it out and I dont have the time and inclination for 9 coats of anything.

Help you Varnish Afficionados! Is there anything out there that will adhere well with this system and be as easy to mantain?

[Jay Greer]

As I have always recommended for the last twenty or more years, Behr Varnish is the most weather, UV resistant and easiest to apply reliable Varnish that has ever come down the pike!
Jay

[DGentry]

I can't answer your #%*n brightwork question. But it's cool that you're restoring Tbirds down there. I didn't know there was a program like that at the CWB - is there more than one boat?
Up here in B'ham, I raced on 43 year old REV (possibly THE best wooden Tbird) all last year. Not an ounce of varnish on that baby . . . .

There's no fleet up here, though, so no one-design racing - and one can only win phrf so many times before it gets dull and pointless, so now the owner has put REV up for sale. Hopefully she'll head back down to Seattle, re-join the fleet there, and make somebody really happy.

Do you race in theTbird fleet or . . . ?

Good luck with your varnish woes. I hope it's drier there than here, right now!
Dave

[Dan McCosh]

Ok, I'm a noob and its my first post. I've come to this forum before and found answers I was after with out asking.

not this time...

I run the Tbird program at CWB in Seattle. Over the last 5 years my crew and I have taken a free boat and turned her into one of the best wooden Thunderbirds in the PNW.

Granted, I have amazing resourses of arcane wooden boat knoledge there to mine but I'm stumped on this.

When we wooded the deckhouse and coamings 4 years ago, we decided to go with the Tuf Shield system for the brightwork. (deckhouse, coamings, hand rails, hatch tracks, toe rails, tiller, etc) It has performed beautifully in our wet and cold winters & bright warm summers. It has been elastic in the wet and suffered sun well.

After getting through the 6 coat first year set up we have applied a layer in the spring and fall after light sandings. The brightwork always looked great from 5 feet away which is our standard for a boat that gets over a hundred race starts a season. The brightork gets a lot of dings that we seal up with q-tips diped in it. Love the stuff, and now I cant get it...

I've been out of the gloss since spring, and applied something called Cyrstal on reliable recomendation then. Stuff didnt stick. I'm a guy, but I did follow the instructions.
I will sand that layer off but I'm not going to wood it out and I dont have the time and inclination for 9 coats of anything.

Help you Varnish Afficionados! Is there anything out there that will adhere well with this system and be as easy to mantain?


Dunno what Tuf Shield is, but Crystal, if it is the one I am familiar with, is a quick-dry polyurethane, which probably isn't compatible. It does work with other polyurethanes, however.

[barbaree]

Hey Dave, REV is definitely the best race prepared Tbird wood or glass.
I admired the perfect fairing and polished Baltoplate on her when she was drysailed at Shilshoal. Most people assume shes a glass boat. I'd love to have her, but I love the one I got.

If you were with Gerry at Worlds you might remember us. Barbaree is the red Seattle boat. We are lucky in that we keep her on Lake Union, so we Duck Dodge on Tuesdays, and OD on Wednesdays. We cherry pick weekend stuff and we race the wooden boat festivals. We've won all the CWB regattas at some point and the PTWF under 26 the last couple years.

We try to keep her in pretty good looking condition since she lives on CWBs docks. We've done a hell of a lot of work on her, but we'd have to reskin her to get her as smooth as REV. She is one of the first homebuilt boats. She was started in 59 along with a couple others with bootlegged plans from the Eddon boatyard. She was originaly #5, but there was more than one 5 issued, so the builder took 60 for the year he splashed her. She has the original house and furniture down to the coral green formica. The rig and rudder are modern.

I'm going to dig out the remains of that Tuff Shield and let you guys know what the ingrediets are. I didnt know it was that obscure.

[Yeadon]

barbaree!

This is Tim Yeadon, owner of Big Food (http://superyeadon.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/critical-research-and-development/), aka the toughest fightin' peapod known to CWB.

Originally, I wanted to use Tuf Shield on the brightwork, but like you, couldn't get my hands on any. It appears they've gone out of business. I ended up using Top Secret, but am not enamored with it at all. In fact, I'm pretty disappointed with its durability. I'm thinking about taking it down and trying something else.

I'm considering Coelan coatings (http://www.premapro.com/tp_coelan.htm), which is a flexible polyurethane. I've read good stuff on it and am being led to believe that it's compatible with Tuf Shield. Take it all with a grain of salt, of course, but here's a link (http://www.coelan.com/8e4467fe178fb1cf960ea7c635c8e29c/de/products/boat/index.html) to some info on it.

Let me know when you're ready to race. I get a 12 hour headstart, of course.

[abbyj]

It is an excellent product, but I have no idea why it didn't take.( If you're talking about Detco's Crystal (http://www.detcomarine.com/dcrystal.htm))

abby

[barbaree]

Pulled all my extant cans out of the paint locker. I read 'em all and dont have much of a clue what Tuf Shield is outside of 'copolymer' and 'makes varnishing obsolete'. I do know if it you let it get on your skin, it looks like you've been infected with some flesh eating disease.

The best discription I have for its cured consistancy is that when it hardens in the bottom of a cup, it has an eeiry similarity to a puck shaped golf ball. Drop the cup and it will bounce half way back up, even with a brush stuck in it like King Arthurs sword.

Word around the campfire at Fisheries is the Canadian gentleman who invented the stuff took the formula to the grave.

Tim, I looked at the Coelan site on your post and was impressed. When I was at Fisheries today windowshopping titanium snapshackles, I dropped the Varnish subject on Steve. He showed me a new System 3 water soluable clear product that sounds similar. I might try that since they are a local outfit. I'm going to call them on the phone and see what they have to say first.

Abby, I've heard nothing but good things about Crystal. I did the tiller and hatch rails indoors and they are fine... The deckhouse surface could have been too warm or cool. Might have been too humid or dry or I may have inadvertanly offended some god that day, but I didnt vary from the 'structions more than necessary living in the PNW...

Thanks for the help so far. I cant believe there arent a bunch of you that have used Tuf Shield. There are at least a couple other boats around our docks that has it on 'em.

[Bob Triggs]

I used some of this product on an outdoor ladder. I told the owner that I thought that simple gloss spar varnish would be best, easiest to maintain etc- he insisted on Tuf Shield. It is some kind of plastic polymer product, harder and thinner than polyurethane.

You could get away with lightly sanding this finish with 220 and tack clothing well, then top coating it with a good quality of spar varnish. In the end, at some point, you will have to remove this stuff and refinish. Plastic finishes are a problem when it comes to recoating, repairing etc.
I have tried a few exotic finishes along the way, but old fashioned varnished brightwork turns out to be the simplest and easiest to maintain if you keep up with it.

[Yeadon]

FYI ... I was down at Fisheries Supply this afternoon. Tuff Shield is back on the market. They had some in stock.

[Concordia...41]

This is a chemistry question - not brightwork.


The best discription I have for its cured consistancy is that when it hardens in the bottom of a cup, it has an eeiry similarity to a puck shaped golf ball. Drop the cup and it will bounce half way back up, even with a brush stuck in it like King Arthurs sword.


This description perfectly matches (well, maybe it is a little more colorful :)) what happens to this stuff when you set it in a corner and come back the next day:

http://www.bristolfinish.com/

It's a compatibility question though. Crystal is a fine product, but if it doesn't adhere to the existing finish, well, then, that sucks. Largely.

Again, it's a question for the chemistry folks.

Edited to add that if I had read Yeadon's perfect solution, I wouldn't have bored you with the Bristol Finish stuff... :(

[Vinny&Shawn]

As I have always recommended for the last twenty or more years, Behr Varnish is the most weather, UV resistant and easiest to apply reliable Varnish that has ever come down the pike!
Jay

Jay, where can we purchase Behr varnish and is it sold under any generic names?

[Lew Barrett]

You can use a standard long oil varnish over Tuf Shield. Epifanes or Captains will work. I did my decks in TS a dozen or so years ago, and although that's not what is on them now, I always refreshed with Epifanes without any problems. Other traditional spar varnishes should work equally well. But I can't say what happened with your Detco Crystal.

[pcford]

Jay, where can we purchase Behr varnish and is it sold under any generic names?

The Behr miracle varnish is no longer made. Or at least that is what a recent poster stated. Mclendon's in Seattle did have it under the Tru-Tone label. $6.50 a quart. Still on their site but check out cart says it is no longer available.

As most will note....I am very dubious of the claims for the stuff. Not that I necessarily doubt anyone that has been touting it....but the history of yachting is a history of extravagant claims for this or that clear finish.

As far as I can tell, there are none that stand head and shoulders above the rest. We all may have our favorites...but that's what they are...our favorites...not the greatest clear coating ever made.

[Jay Greer]

I never make a statment I can't back up with facts and proof there of.
Jay

[pcford]

I never make a statment I can't back up with facts and proof there of.
Jay

Jay, we've been through this before. If you have results from an independent testing laboratory using good protocols, then you should share them.

Just asserting that Behr varnish lasted 5 years on your house door is not convincing to me.

Again, I really believe that you are totally sincere and honestly do believe that this varnish is the greatest varnish put on god's green earth. But you are the _only_ person I have met that feels this way. And I 've met quite a few varnishers in doing this stuff professionally for 35 years .

But the point I'd like to impart to all of you people out there _besides_ Jay is this:
If you don't know the answer to a boat-related question, ask a mess of people. Then sort out the answers depending on your own "philosophy." That's what I do. I am shameless; I don't feel awkward doing this. I want the best answer possible for me and my client.

Taking the opinion of Jay...or me...and running with it is a sure path to disaster.

[Yeadon]

I bought some Tru-Tone spar varnish. I used it with success, adding testimony to its idiot-proof aura. I liked it better than "Top Secret" ... which was a single part epoxy and not a varnish. It's been good stuff for my rails and other brightwork, though I will say that nothing seems to hold up on my rowing thwarts. Not sure I expect anything to, either, considering the friction caused when my butt hits that thwart for hours on end.

However, all along, I've heard that Tuff Shield is what I've really needed ... a flexible clear coating with UV.

[Jay Greer]

Jay, we've been through this before. If you have results from an independent testing laboratory using good protocols, then you should share them.

Just asserting that Behr varnish lasted 5 years on your house door is not convincing to me.

Again, I really believe that you are totally sincere and honestly do believe that this varnish is the greatest varnish put on god's green earth. But you are the _only_ person I have met that feels this way. And I 've met quite a few varnishers in doing this stuff professionally for 35 years .

But the point I'd like to impart to all of you people out there _besides_ Jay is this:
If you don't know the answer to a boat-related question, ask a mess of people. Then sort out the answers depending on your own "philosophy." That's what I do. I am shameless; I don't feel awkward doing this. I want the best answer possible for me and my client.

Taking the opinion of Jay...or me...and running with it is a sure path to disaster.
Well now, it is not my intention to start a tempest in a tea cup here.
And, sadly the varnish that I used commercialy for some fifty years and exclusivley on my own boats is darn near impossible to obtain since the EPA decided that wooden boat owners, who maintain their bright work with certain natural resin varnishes, are major poluters to the environment. Certainly I have no reason to insist that others follow my choice of products other than in all the years I have been in the boat business I have found a few that work better than others at less labor and less expense that may make life easier for others.

By the way, one thing I do object to is flagrant and diliberate misquotation of information I have posted! I did not state that the varnish on the door of my house has lasted five years. It was nine.
Jay