thompsondockside.com

im facing a delema! i started sanding down the inside of my seamate, mostly the ribs,because that is the easiest! but the laps are what my real problem is. i would say about 45% of the inside is just cracking varnish. i was able to scrap alot of that off. which could be revarnished, which is what i really want to do, but the rest of the planking has turned gray, and alot of it was delaminating. if i hadnt put so much work into the boat already and had it out on the water, i would consider taking all the planking off and replacing it. i would like to wait a year or two on that. i should have planned better when i started this boat 4 years ago. this is my question, one, was there a special kind of varnish that thompson used on the inside, and what brand have others used? my second i guess is more an opinion. i could go two routes, i could just paint the inside like a lite gray, or try and have a paint matched close to the color of oak and cedar varnished. sounds kind of weird. a friend of mine even suggested cutting cedar 1/2 thick blocks to go in between the ribs, making it look like the planking. i would really like to varnish it all but that cant happen right now without taking the boat all apart. i search past views trying to find answers, but i really didnt find any for my question. im open to any suggestions. thanks joel

Pettit was the varnish used by Thompson Bros. Boat Mfg. Co. for many years. I am sure they used the same type inside the boat as on the decks, etc... Any quality marine spar varnish is acceptable today. I personally use Interlux Schonner no. 96.

I have just spent weeks removing the paint from the interior of a lapstrake Thompson - from the ribs and planking. What a mess. So, I do NOT recommend you paint the inside of your boat.. Below the floor boards is a different story. But the exposed to view areas I suggest you keep 'em varnished.

Removing the existing varnish is not simple. A combination of chemical strippers, scraper and heat gun, and sanding must be utilized. The gray-black areas of stainng can be blended by bleaching the wood.

If you want to cover up the planking, use ceiling boards like on a typical Chris-Craft or Century. Use mahogany of western red cedar or spanish cedar or alaska yeloow cedar or whatever. Stain and varnish it to match the other tirm on the boat. Attach the ceiling boards to the ribs.

Andreas

Joel... given that you do not want to disassemble the boat, you can consider the following steps that I did several years ago..

I used a pull type Red Devil paint scraper, the kind you use on houses with the very sharp edges to scrap the loose varnish. I also used a push type scraper blade and resharpened these blades to keep them sharp. I tried sanding what I could in between the ribs and the next lap.. THis was tight, since I think these were only about 4 x 6" sections.

I vacuumed the entire boat well, and set up three buckets of hot water outside the boat on a table with some TSP in bucket one. I used a combination of damp cloths, sponges, and 3m scotch pads to totally clean the inside of the hull including all the way under the sister keelsons. I did not use a power washer, as I wanted to keep the inside as dry as possible. (Afterward, other guys like Steve Smith validated that a power wash will force water into areas that one may not want wet.)

I did this several times to get a clean dry hull inside. One step I did not do on the inside, but did on some gray decking, is to use a deckwash to remove faded wood... Even better is to use wood bleach (oxalic acid...in a small tub at the hardware... wear rubber gloves)... When I did this on some gray seats, I did it multiple times on the bad areas, and even mixed it so thick it was a slurry and dabbed it on the dark spots with a QTip or brush. Then thoroughly rinse (or repeated wipe with a wet rag to clean off the bleach..

After that drys you will need to remove the old gray fibers with 100 grit and then maybe 150.

On one strake where my gearshift levers were mounted, there was some delamination... maybe two areas 2 / 10". I slit open the outer layers that had lifted, and injected some Smith's two part all wood epoxy glue, rubbed the outside to work it around.. and then clamped with a sheet of poly, then 1x4" pine board... I has held together fine after that.

Then, I coated the entire hull below the floor line with CPES... back and forth for about an hour..... then a week later the same thing... . It will dissolve the residual varnish just like a stripper, so you can scrap off the gummy old varnish, or leave it like I did. On the rest of the hull inside, I used 5 coats of Schooner varnish... As I remember, I used 50%+ pure mineral spirits the first past, maybe 25% Min Spirits pass 2, then Penetrol at about 15% pass three, and the last two passes 100% Varnish. I didn't thin the varnish much on the lower sections but did a final light coat of CPES 24hrs before the first coat of varnish. Thinned varnished did help on the above floor strakes to soak in as a sealer there. I didn't use CPES up there, because I didn't want to make a mess with lifting the old varnish.

THe only thing I would have done differently, would have been to bleach some of those inside gray areas, including the transom, because they darkened up after varnishing. On the seats where I did bleach, the wood essentially looked like new and there is a nice uniform varnish tone. I would also have looked for a small power sander to flatten out some of the old varnish ridges above the floorline before recoating. My mouse sander could barely fit, but I think there are some Craftsman sanders that would work.

Hope this helps.

John.

I worked very hard for about 4 or 5 weeks, with heat gun and scraper, on the interior of my 1960 Cruisers Inc. 202. Had it about 80% complete, when I decided to get serious with inner keel.

After a day or two I found out how easy it was to remove lapstrakes. In the end all lapstrakes were removed, coated with cpes, varished, and reinstalled with new fasheners, and 3 m 5200 between laps.

Sent less time removing and replacing laps thanI did scraping. The bonus is you get to cpes and varish the back sides of the untreated ribs.

www.aerialimaging.net/johnpics30

www.aerialimaging.net/johnpics31

i have the whole inside sanded down to bare wood and cleaned with tsp!! did you guys use any kind of stain, like a natural or maybe something else, or just go to varnish? thanks
oh yea and i tried some red mahogany stain on the transom, it looks nothing like your guy's pics. way too dark, weird as it sounds it looks like walnut dark! i have not used cpes yet, im waiting to receive it, i dont know does that effect the color at all? next best thing i found was a cherry, looked really close? any feedback is always highly appretiated
joel

Originally there was NO pigmented stain on the ceiling (inside of boat planking and ribs) - just varnish. You might have to stain to match the old finish.

Andreas