Varnishing Teak





When we bought the Sea Heather, I had no idea how to varnish teak, so I looked on the internet, I bought books, and filled my brain with as much advice as possible. I waited out the long Alaskan winter until early May when the sun finally started peeking out and I began my work. The Sea Heather's teak was in pretty good condition, but had patches of varnish that were decades old! It had only been oiled by the previous owners, so I was forced to strip off the old varnish and the oil. Agh! It took days of hard labor, working from dusk til dawn to even get it to the point where I could begin sanding. Below is a picture of the teak. the darker parts are varnish that I presume was more than a decade old. The lighter color is from oil, this is where the owners had oiled over the original varnish instead of removing it.


To get the varnish off of the teak I used a heat gun and a set of scrapers. This is the only method I can reccomend, as so far I have not used stripping chemicals and sanding is horrible! The heat gun is certainly the most efficient way, but you must be careful not to burn the wood or yourself.

After I made it past this point, I was able to start sanding. I soon found out that sanding was not my favorite activity. It was once again, days of back-braking work. Sanding is something that must be done in layers. I started off with 180 grit sand paper and then moved to 230. This required loads of sandpaper. I then wet sanded teak oil in with the 400 grit sand paper. All this took about a week of working 3-4 hours each day with an electric sander. Once it was finished the teak was looking pretty good.

After this it took an additional week to apply all of the varnish. Luckily I get off work very early, as varnishing in Alaska is best when done mid-day. I only was able to get 6 coats on before the weather turned. The terrible thing about Alaska (and varnishing in Alaska) is that once the weather turns it doesn't turn back.


By the end of this the boat was looking very good, but unfortunately a coating that thin is not bound to last. It didn't even make it through the winter. Oh well. Another lesson learned...