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How much relative humidity is too much for new varnish. I'm starting from scratch on freshly stained wood. Hot and humid here in Wisconsin.

Can I at least apply the base coats with humidity in the 80-90% range?

john

I varnish all the time, no matter what the humidity is. Does not seam to pose problems for my work.

Andreas

Thanks, Andreas,

I was sure I read somewhere that high humidity posed problems for varnishing. If you say it can be done, that's good enough for me! I might have the Chetek ready for Lake Geneva yet.

John

It was nasty humid yesterday when I varnished. No problems with the final results.

Andreas

Only thing I can recall with high humidity when varnishing is that the varnish can take longer to dry throughly. Other then that I have not had problems with humidity.
Temperature however is a different story.
To cool and it take an eternity to dry and you have a greater chance of things like dust and bugs getting stuck in the tacky surface.
To warm and it dries to quickly and does not flow out like you want it to for a smooth finish.

Good Luck!

Phill

Progress report: First coat of 25% varnish, 75% mineral spirits is now on the boat. Wow! Looks great already. Can't wait to see it with multiple coats of pure varnish on.

So now the question is...how do I know when I can put the next application on? I know drying time varies but is there a general rule of thumb? One day..two days...couple of hours?

She's sure gonna be pretty!

John

I generally wait 24 hrs, but I think you can recoat within 24 hrs... If you do it too soon, it may drag or dissolve/gob up your first coat...

Even though I think some folks put 3 or 4 coats on before they sand, I sanded in between each one... A side benefit was, that if it was not dry enough to create white dust, then it was probably not ready for recoating...

Just a thought.

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Hoping this works to send a photo of my second varnish coat. I'm having a ball with my first varnish project thanks to you guys on the board. Lots of good tips and all of them have worked great so far.

JOhn

I can refinish and varnish an old wooden boat but I can't send a picture on the Internet!

john

I'm the moderator and I have not been able to figure out how to post pictures!

Andreas

Well, I've never varnished a boat, but here is how you post picures to this forum.

First you need a hosting service. I use photobucket.com. It's Free. Set up an account there.

Then, you upload your pictures to photbucket. Easy and straight forward.
You'll note, under each picture that you post, there are four "tags". One is labled IMG code. Copy and paste that code into the body of your message. When you submit (or preview) the photo will be there for you.

Success?

Peter,

Thanks for the help! I hope my Chetek looks half as nice as your Sea Lancer when its done. Outstanding!

John

Glad to help, your craft looks great. My sea lancer is one of those classics that looks best from a short distance, but thanks for the compliment!