We have been contemplating sanding the entire interior down to bare wood and varnishing it all since we bought the boat. Initially, we were going to do it in sections which was not going to be a problem when it was just Deb and I on the boat. It would make a mess, but we could hang plastic and isolate it. But when the girls moved in, it made it a little harder because we didn’t want to sand with them down below due to the dust.
After seeing how much fiberglass made it down into the boat from the decks and house being sanded, we had a major clean-up job ahead of us anyway. So, that was the push to go ahead and start working on the interior. This week Deb took the first step by donning the respirator, loading up the 100 grit and sanding 40 years of oil, varnish, and dirt off the walls. She started on the forward port side of the lower salon, and within just 2 hours the forward bulkhead looked great and was sanded down to 220 grit. We typically sand with 150 grit then go to 220 grit and prefer to get the loop and hook style versus the adhesive back ones. I find them to be more convenient. For those interested, we like the Diablo brand because of they last long, are reasonably priced because we buy them 50 disks at a time and have a great storage container that they come in. They also sell them in smaller quantities. They are not a sponsor, but we do use these regularly. I have shared links below for them if it helps.
Large Packs of 50 come in both 150 Grit and 220 Grit. This company makes all different sizes attachment method and package quantities. They also have other sizes and quantities as well.
We have found that an air sander makes better progress (more power with the large compressor at the yard), but we do most of our sanding away from the yard and the large compressor, so we use an orbital sander that has a variable adjustment to the distance of the orbiting motion. It is reasonably priced and does a really good job. We have had it for over nine years and have put it through some serious abuse over the years on boat refits.
And I will tell you that all this sanding down below created a LOT of dust. When I first came down below, I thought that Deb had sanded the entire forward side of the Salon because everything was dusty and that light teak color. BUT, it was just a complete layer of dust on every surface. And not just horizontal surfaces but even the vertical surfaces. You can see the bronze doorknob also looks like it is made of teak in this photo.