Feature Image - Scraping and varnish

Scraping and testing a new Exterior Finish

This week I wasn’t able to get a ton of stuff done. I ended up going out of town and because of that had limited time on the weekend with spending time with family and running around.

scroll work on bowI have wanted to make some more progress on the exterior of the boat while I wait for the weather to warm up a bit so that we can get a better polyester resin test. I hopped in the dingy and took a closer inspection of the scrollwork on the bow. It is pretty BUT hasn’t been cared for in many years I suspect. The varnish finish is peeling and not looking great.

I used my handy Banco scraper that Mads from Sail life recommended and it worked great. It is small enough to get into te corners and edges along the decorative teak scrolls. Don’t get me wrong; there was nothing fast about this process.


The tools we use for this job are listed below if you find this a convenient way to shop for them.    If you use these links, you get the same great Amazon pricing, but we get a small affiliate link credit.  Thank you.


I scraped the flat sections and then decided to take a dinghy ride up to the hardware store and pick up a can of original varnish. Not urethane. I came back and scraped and sanded a small section of McKinlee Checking me outthe toe rail to do my test.

It sure looks better, but that would be easy to have it look better frankly, so now I need to build up layers and see how she will look. The varnish seems about the same to work with, but I suspect it will be easier to cut in than the urethane.

In this week’s video, you will see a few mixed clips (from the little one taking care of me when I was sick which was just cute as hell and also a short dinghy ride capturing video of the outside of DreamChaser as we went past it from 2 different directions.