All the way down to wood?

[juneskiff]

Our lapstrake sailing skiff was finished with Deks 1 & 2. When they stopped importing the product, we decided to refinish her with varnish on the topsides, rails, thwarts, spars and boards, and a combination of linseed and pine tar inside. We're waffling about the pine tar/linseed decision, however. We may go with Epiphanes' rapid dry clear and a topcoat of their rubbed-finish. Here's the Question: in either case do we have to take her all the way down to wood? Get rid of every last stubborn smudge of the Deks before coating her with the tar/oil mix? with varnish?

[Thorne]

Welcome to the Forum!

Please go to the USER CP link in the upper left and update your location -- much depends on whether you live in Alaska or Brazil. If the latter, I personally don't recommend oil finishes as they can mold or get sticky in the tropical sun.

Also tell us why you decided to not go with a similar product like Le Tonk or whatever.

Any way you slice it, for the outside / topsides you'll probably need to wood the boat. For the interior probably ditto, as otherwise you'll have blotches of light finish in between black oily areas....

[rivet]

We may go with Epiphanes' rapid dry clear and a topcoat of their rubbed-finish. [/B]

I think that "rubbed effect" from epifanes is for interior use???

[juneskiff]

Epifanes does make an interior rubbed effect finish, and also one for exterior use: "Wood Finish Matte"
http://www.epifanes.com/products.html

We're in Olympia, Washington. No tropical sun here. As for a similar finish, I haven't been persuaded by testimonials about specific products such as Cetol or Le Tonkinois, as they usually have equal, opposite reactions.

But we haven't made up our minds yet. Open to sound arguments.

The main concern about to wood or not to wood is less about the obvious places where appearances count, and more about the hard-to-reach parts of our lovely little boat (bless her) like up under the thwarts and between frames and knees and the like. I want to be sure she is well protected by whatever we use. If oil won't soak in and do the job unless we get it every square inch all the way to wood, then I think we'll have to go another route.

[Dave Gray]

Hamilton Marine appears to carry Deks based upon a search I just did. It is available in 1 or 2.5 liters.

[John Meachen]

How about pricing the original deks-olje from a European source.It would be compatible and even if the freight charges were a little high,the time saving would surely justify the expense.Take a look at http://marinestore.co.uk/Merchant2/m...anes-deks-olje and ask some questions.A google search will soon find other potential sources.

[StevenBauer]

http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/brow...83/4,5048.html

[juneskiff]

Hmm... Hamilton Marine. Think I'll give them a call. Find out if they plan to keep it in stock or are just still selling what they had left on the shelf. Definitely more affordable than shipping from the UK, which I looked into and ruled out.\

But about that "down to wood" question...anyone know the answer?

[StevenBauer]

Their old stock is gone, I bought some of it.


Steven

[Todd Bradshaw]

I've varnished over Deks #1 before and never seemed to have a problem. I'm not so sure about varnishing over Deks#2, but doubt there is anything in either product that would repel subsequent applications of oil or varnish. If I remember correctly, Freedom Boatworks used to use Deks #1 as a base coat for the varnish inside their cedar boats and canoes.

There is also this source for Deks, though I'm not sure whether they will sell single cans. You might have to get some folks to go in with you and buy a case.

http://www.deksolje.com/

[Pitsligo]

So varnish over Deks 1 works. Varnish over Deks 2, maybe.

Anyone know how much/what type of prep to do if shifting over to a linseed or linseed/pine tar slush?

I'm an Epifanes snob, myself, but sanding the interior of a lapstrake skiff is a serious drag. I can see how a low-sanding option would be good.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I haven't tried it, but tend to have more doubts about the pine tar/linseed mix going on well. Due to the irregular nature of wood grain, there are bound to be places where the Deks soaked in deeper than other spots. This probably won't affect the look of a top coat, like varnish, but expecting a similar oil product, especially one that is a different color, to go on evenly without any blotches might be pushing your luck. Those places where the wood still retains more Deks #1 might end up as lighter spots, just because the residual Deks might prevent them from will absorbing a uniform amount of the tar/oil mixture. Granted, I'm just guessing here, but I have this bad mental image of a boat with irregular light and dark spots all over its inside and what a royal pain in the butt it would be to try to fix something like that.

[Pitsligo]

Hm. Good point on the differences in Deks saturation.

So a straight oil (linseed, tonkinois) would probably go on more evenly (in terms of coloration) than an oil/tar mixture where the coloring would be more glaring, and a top coat would bypass the entire problem. Yes?

Part of me wonders whether a tar-rich slush would be dark enough to overcome the problem --but that seems a bit of a gamble. Could come out kind of leopard-spotted, pale in the areas where the Deks resisted the slush.

Sorry juneskiff, you're just going to have to Epifanes everything.

But won't she just look sharp?

[juneskiff]

Indeed, she will be beautiful. And the sanding is required in either case because of wood discoloration. It's just those hard-to-reach spots that won't get seen but still need protecting that I'm worried about. But the Epifanes folks say that varnish should go on fine over a polymerized oil product like Deks, so the rapid-dry seems like not such a terrible option.

I'm a bit worried about a product without the resilience of oil, but I guess every choice has its down side.

Thanks for all the great input!