Refinishing Teak and Mahogany Wood Brightwork
One of the unique thing about the Chinook 34 sailboat is that it is truly a hybrid between a fiberglass and wooden boat. While in 1956 Tom Green and Dr. Merle Starr at Yacht Constructors adapted Frederick Geiger’s 1931 improved version of the 34 foot Vigilant Class sloop, to build the hulls in fiberglass, much of the deck and cabin work retained the classic wooden boat design with heavy duty wooden frame work. Since most Yacht Constructors boats were finished by the buyer they can vary widely in the materials and wood species used in the finish. Cinnamon has a tasteful combination of beautiful straight grained African mahogany used in the interior frames, cockpit coaming and winch blocks, with teak accents and trim including teak rub rail and teak toe rail.
The teak toe rail and mahogany cockpit coaming brightwork had been sadly neglected for sometime. It looked like a project the previous owner had been thinking about it because there were various wood refinishing and restoring products, teak oil and such, in the cockpit lazaret. While I was at A & D Yacht Service at Rocky Point Marina I ask for their recommendation on refinishing the brightwork. Andrew, the owner, paint expert and all around boatyard guru recommend a good cleaning, light sanding and Cetol Marine Natural Teak Finish.
At Hayden Bay, Hank, the owner of a Baba cutter sailboat that has extensive teak brightwork with teak bow sprit, toe rail, hatches and cockpit coaming, has been experimenting for the past few years with the various Cetol finishes. His conclusion is the Cetol Natural Teak Finish is the most durable. I have to say Hank is a bit obsessive about his teak brightwork. He spent a good part of his summer stripping the teak bow sprit down to bare wood and then he applied 8 coats of Cetol Marine Wood Finish. Also, upon the strength of Hank’s experience Dana Sewall undertook the project of refinishing the teak toe rail on his Cape Dory 30 sailboat. Dana spent hour sanding lightly by hand and with a small finish sander, with extreme care to remove as little of his precious teak wood as possible. Then he did 4 coats of Cetol Marine Natural Teak Finish and several coats of Cetol Marine Wood Finish Gloss Overcoat.
With these 3 strong recommendations for Cetol Marine Wood Finish in the “Natural Teak” and several more from other sailboat owners at the marina who had also used the Cetol products over the years I decided to give in and spend $30 for a quart of the stuff.
Now the commitment had been made. The first step, as Andrew suggested, was to clean the years of accumulated grime off the teak and mahogany wood brightwork. It took several hours on hands-and-knees to make a round of the teak toe rail the cockpit coaming. Simple Green Marine cleaner with first a soft brush and then some elbow grease with a Scotch-Brite pad did a fine job of removing the heavy stuff. Since most of the old finish was gone and the grain of the wood was already raised, so I wasn’t worried the surface at this point. Fortunately there was plenty of wood to work with so sanding it down to a smooth surface wasn’t a problem. Using my palm sander where I could and hand sanding where necessary, I gave it a light sanding with 80 grit sandpaper to knock off the heavy stuff and then a second finish sanding with 200 grit sandpaper. I used a shop vacuum as I went along to remove as much of the dust as possible. As a final step before applying the “Natural Teak” Cetol Marine Wood Finish, I wiped the teak and mahogany wood brightwork down with a dust free cloth dampened with acetone. As recommend on the Cetol can I put on 3 coats. The Cetol says no sanding but I went over it between coats with an Ultra-Fine Scotch-Brite Hand Pad just to take off the gloss and wiped it down with a clean cloth. I’ll post some pictures below. Click on the small picture to see a larger image.
