 |
We are finally at that point where we’ve done the sanding, done the test coats and now we have to do the first coat. Being honest we were quite nervous as we’ve never worked with AWLWood before and not worked with wood in a very long time. But The time was upon us to walk the walk.
Preparation
Proper, Preparation, Prevents, P&*s, Poor, Performance. So we took the first coat preparation slowly and carefully. We had the hull sanded evenly down to a 240 grit finish (220 to 280 is the recommended level of sanding for AWLWood for varnish to varnish sanding) and had cleared the loose layer similar to the one we found on the transom. The next stage is to get rid of all of the dust, which is a challenge in itself. We’ve got a Hoover (A genuine Hoover, not a vacuum cleaner we are calling a hoover) which has a hepa filter to try and reduce the amount of recycled dust.
Steps:
- Hoover up dust which is on the floor around the hull
- Hoover off the excess dust from the hull, this is a continuous process during the sanding but we did a final pass after we’d stopped sanding
- Use a water sprayer and a absorbent cloth to wipe the hull surface down
- Wash the hull down with a soft sponge (Baby skin sponge ideally) and clean water in a jug to at first wipe the hull down and then absorb the excess water back, did this twice to ensure we had got all the surface dust off
- Use a tack cloth to wipe the hull down
- Then leave the hull overnight (And this is critical) to allow any dust floating in the air to settle
- Immediately before varnishing do another Tack cloth wipe down
Setting up to use AWLWood is pretty much the same as any one part varnish, we are using a 4″ Foam roller and a 2″ brush for tipping. For the first batch we wanted to understand the coverage we would get from AWLWood, so measured out the amount of fluid we used. In total for coat one we used 315ml to get 100% coverage from a 936ml bottle. Meaning that one bottle would give us approximately 2.5 full coats including wastage etc.
Not proposing to talk about technique here, but we took the first coat slowly, it took about two and 3/4 hours to complete. After completing the coverage we left the boat to sit for 24 hours before checking on the outcome. The outside temperature was in single figures and although we have two bar heaters, an Oil Heater and hot air heater running the coating actually took 36 hours to fully cure.
First coat gallery
The difficult second album/coat
In retrospect we probably got a bit cocky after the success of the first coat, which came out really well, and made three main mistakes for the second; first we didn’t scuff the surface up enough to give a clear enough distinction between coated and uncoated surface, second we rushed our preparation phase and didn’t leave an overnight break to allow any airborne dust to settle, we tried to do it all in one day and finally we rushed the application phase and where to heavy handed when tipping the varnish.
As you can see in the areas where the lights are reflected, the brush marks are significant and AWLWood doesn’t flow out enough to flatten those out and there was a high amount of dust caught in the AWLWood, net result was we had to do a full sand of the second coat to undo the mess. Probably meant 50% of the coat was removed.
The return of the king/proper coating
Having learnt our lesson from the second coat, we returned to our longer preparation phase, having sanded the hull it meant that contrast wasn’t an issue. In addition we went back to Dan Lee’s online training and noticed that there was a difference between how he showed detailed versions of techniques and how he applied them in full scale. There was more cross over of roller passes at full scale and softer tipping with the brush. Armed with this and the knowledge that AWLWood doesn’t flow out as easily as Epifanes we took more time for the third coat and were softer on the tipping out phase. The impact is clear from the below pictures.
Next Steps
We need to get into the inside of the boat, so the plan is to let the boat sit over Christmas and then flip the hull over and start on the interior. First job is to fully strip the gunwales and corner of the side tanks where the varnish has been stripped by helm and crew feet and bums. These we are going to redo in AWLWood but the rest of the interior we are going to sand down a few layers of varnish and then add a few coats of Epifanes clear gloss varnish. After that we can do the deck gear updates and then flip the hull to do the last two coats and then the final sanding and polishing etc.