Aft Lazarette Wood Refinishing

[Patches]

All:

Every time my wife goes down to the boat she looks at the wood under the helm seat and says:  "Thats got to be re-finished."  After working down the priority list of projects, I'm finally there.  Or maybe I'm there because she volunteered to do it this weekend...

For me refinishing exterior wood is kind of a fool's errand. Or maybe it was a conspiracy between the boat manufacturers and the marine paint/finish industry.  Anyway, the wood under the helm seat on my boat looks like some poor former attempts with Cetol.  Then there is a poor attempt at running silicone caulk along the top edge, I guess to prevent water leaking down between the seat and the wood trim. Didn't work.  After taking a look, I found the trim is screwed on from the back--through the aft locker lid.  "Great!"  I thought, I'll just remove it all, put a little marine tex over the (8!) holes, sand it, buff it, and never worry about refinishing that wood again.

Then I discovered why that trim piece is there:  To stiffen the very thin layup in the front of the lid. Back to refinishing.

In the process of scraping and sanding the trim pieces, I'm thinking the wood may be mahogany--not teak.

DOES ANYONE KNOW FOR SURE?  It will help me decide how to replace the center piece of trim, which is toast, and help inform the kind of finish I use going forward.

Thanks!

Patches

   

[Stu Jackson]

Patches,

I have gone through the entire "how to treat exterior wood" routine.  For our cockpit wood we eventually settled on Cetol which we apply carefully so it doesn't look like Farmer Joe on his way to the country fair!    We once got it down to bare wood when we removed the OP's original varnish finish.  We had boats for years before and determined varnish was not our style nor did we like the work.  Your boat, your choice.

Mine's teak, like all the rest of the wood upstairs.

Depending on how you choose to finish it, any replacement wood is really up to you.  Heck, you could even just paint it white to make it visually disappear.  Or if stiffness is all you think you need, put the stiffener on the INSIDE and remove the wood on either side of the lazarette hatch/seat.  Just thinkin' outside the box...

PS - If you add your hull #, at least, to your avatar or signature, it will help us and we don't have to keep asking you...

[scgunner]

    Patches,

       I'm all about low to zero maintenance. I got tired of refinishing the outside teak every six months so I replaced those three pieces(among others)by shaping new ones from a sheet of Starboard plastic. You can cut and shape it just like wood, I used gray to match the trim color on the boat, it looks great and once in place requires no further maintenance.