Keith66 wrote:Once the inside is stripped of varnish i would seriously consider a good soaking in boat soup, linseed oil & clear cuprinol. Its about the only way to put some life back in the timber & preserve it.
Very interesting posts in this thread, thanks to everyone, as I am just embarking on my own scraping journey I have some questions for those of you who know more about this sort of thing.
I am for the first time trying chemical stripper as opposed to my heat gun, which took one look at the inside of Ben Her and died, the chemical stripper seems reasonably effective but damn messy, so I have now started dry scraping as much as possible before using the stripper to get the last ingrained layer. Due to the spacing of the ribs I have been scraping across the grain of the planking, is this OK, it does seem to be the only effective way of proceeding, as going along the grain would only allow very short strokes, or am I doing it wrong.
Once scraped, what is the recommended method for sanding the inside between the ribs. None of my electrical oscillating sanders (1/3 sheet and delta) fit between the ribs (and a 1/4 sheet is the same width as a 1/3 sheet so no benefit in getting one of those). I may have to resort to a sanding block and doing it by hand, which is not the end of the world but if anyone has a better idea it would be good to know. I have seen belt sanders with 45mm wide belts that would fit, has anyone used these, I am worried they may be too aggressive and again would only be working across the grain of the planks so not ideal.
I am interested in the "boat soup" mentioned above for old plank re-hydration, I think Ben Her could do with some of this, what is the recommended ratio of linseed oil to cuprinol, and, having let this mixture soak, is any preparation then needed prior to varnishing or priming?
On that last note I have always used thinned down varnish for the first few layers, but someone recently advised me to use a clear primer instead, any thoughts on that would be welcome.
Sorry for all the questions but answers to these would be very helpful.
International 14 #85.