Hand rail refinishing / finish repair question

[madhatter1]

I am thinking of painting the wood on my pulpit. It's the hardest to take care of as it faces right up at the sun. For such a small amount of eye candy I'd rather paint that and concentrate on the bulkhead door and trim. Partially shaded and eye candy that is seen from the dock. Kinda like a pick your battles thing.

[SEVEN]

Yes, after consulting "Google" it sounds like wood deck and other cleaners and brighteners are basically the same as the teak cleaner and brightener. In fact the cleaner (2nd part) is nothing more than oxalic acid which can be bought as powder and mixed for about $3 a gallon.
I ironically threw out 40 lbs of the stuff after it sitting on my shelf for ten years. ugh.
So anyways I ordered a gallon of starbright cleaner and a gallon of brightener and 10 lbs of oxalic acid for future use. It sounds like the cleaners are generally one of 3 different kinds of acid. One of which is just plain old bleach. But for now I'll go with the starbright as they have the mixes down right and less chance of me screwing it up.

As it turns out I believe the oxalic acid is also a good fiberglass deck cleaner that can be mixed up on the cheap, so dual use with that stuff!

Bob, be careful not to allow the acid to get on the paint. It will etch it. Best practice is to do it in the shade, wet everything down really well. Rinse the surrounding paint to make sure nothing dripped on it. Once part two is applied and the wood turns light, rinse rinse rinse everything.

[Bob Quinn]

Bob, be careful not to allow the acid to get on the paint. It will etch it. Best practice is to do it in the shade, wet everything down really well. Rinse the surrounding paint to make sure nothing dripped on it. Once part two is applied and the wood turns light, rinse rinse rinse everything.

Thank you Seven, thanks for the tip, I didn't know it was strong enough to do that!

[IOLANI]

Getting ready to tackle this job with Awlgrip products. Had anybody found the need to use the brushing reducer or is it good straight out of the can (60 degree temps here right now ).

How about type of brush...quality bristle brush or foam ?

[Pascal]

Getting ready to tackle this job with Awlgrip products. Had anybody found the need to use the brushing reducer or is it good straight out of the can (60 degree temps here right now ).

How about type of brush...quality bristle brush or foam ?

I always use a splash of brushing reducer and foam rollers

[edward]

Is the ALWOOD gloss( DOI) as good as varnish ?

[cww]

Is the ALWOOD gloss( DOI) as good as varnish ?

My dock neighbor uses it. IMHO it doesn't look quite as good as Epiphanes but it lasts longer. In Florida not that much longer, nothing lasts that long in the sun down here.

Just to add a random bit of data to this thread, I was not in the mood to spend 2 weeks DIY'ing it this time so I started looking for somebody to do it for me. The marinas are all understaffed around here from the COVID boat-buying explosion and didn't want a time-intensive job or couldn't start on it for months. I found a lady who does boat detailing and varnish work, named Karen Merkel. She did a fantastic job, the cost was $5800 for the railings, trim, and wing doors, based on her time expended. I thought it was reasonable and am very happy with the work.

Before I found her, I spoke to two different people who to put it in as polite of terms as I can manage, both seemed to have some kind of personality disorder. Both loved to talk about themselves, wanted insane money ($15k+), told me repeatedly how they were doing me a favor at that price, and both of them would take days or weeks to respond to a text message and then get angry with me if I didn't respond to theirs within an hour. I wrote them both off because: Obviously. There are a lot of nuts under the boat repair tree lately.

[Scarlett]

Just did my rails with Alwood. Don’t believe there instructions. Wood should definitely be sanded to bare. If you use the clear primer you must get the wood to a point that you like how it looks. The Alwood has no pigments so what you see is what you get. Definitely use a bit of thinner even though they say not to it does not flow like varnish. It definitely likes humidity so that should not be a problem in Fl. It cures with the moisture in the air. I got much better results by doing only one coat a day and sanding with 220 between coats. Use more thinner for the 8 th or last coat. It is a lot harder finish than varnish. I tried foam brushes but quickly shifted to good regular brushes for better results. It comes out looking great but does not have the super smooth feeling that varnish has.

[IOLANI]

Thanks all for the replies.

Just did my rails with Alwood. Don’t believe there instructions. Wood should definitely be sanded to bare. If you use the clear primer you must get the wood to a point that you like how it looks. The Alwood has no pigments so what you see is what you get.

I guess I should ponder this a little more. I'll be sanding down to bare wood but given my druthers I would prefer the rails come out closer to say dark caramel vs light caramel color. Sounds like the only way to achieve that may be with a pigmented varnish. I'll have to search around and look for a picture of what the Alwood clear w /clear primer looks like when completed.

[cww]

Thanks all for the replies.I guess I should ponder this a little more. I'll be sanding down to bare wood but given my druthers I would prefer the rails come out closer to say dark caramel vs light caramel color. Sounds like the only way to achieve that may be with a pigmented varnish. I'll have to search around and look for a picture of what the Alwood clear w /clear primer looks like when completed.

If you want the traditional spar varnish look with the awl grip product then you have to stain the wood first and put the alwood down over it. It’s basically just a clear resin and doesn’t darken when it cures like varnish does. My neighbor swears by it and says it’s more work to apply but lasts longer, claims he gets 2-3 years in Florida vs. 1-2 years for varnish. Personally I think that’s optimistic, I would swear I saw him messing with it a year ago, but the older I get the more time flies so I could be wrong. His looks good. But you can still tell it’s not varnish. It’s clearer and lighter colored even with the stain under it than varnished teak is. Doesn’t have that traditional dark brown look. It’s not as bad as rails done with Cetol, though. You can always spot that light orangey color a mile away.