by GreenLake » Tue Mar 29, 2022 6:56 pm
@Rocky,
these can look very classy when refinished. You do need to take them all apart, sand all pieces on all sides and then do the finish and put them all back together. Later, you may get away with spot refinishing.
The most durable finish would be PU over epoxy. Downside is that the epoxy must seal absolutely everything (even all the screw holes). That last bit can be tricky, and my own refinish project is halted before even reaching the PU stage, because I've put together the boards, but now would need to take them all apart to seal the screw holes. I happily sail without. (Other wooden parts with fewer screws worked well with the epoxy+PU method).
PU on bare wood tends to crack with swelling from moisture and that's tricky to deal with as PU is hard an not easy to sand. More standard varnish will also crack over time and need regular maintenance. If you use an "oil" type product, you may have the shortest life-time, but hey, how hard is wiping on some more oil?
So, you have choices, and you'll find many opinions and suggestions on this site (check out the older posts, there's more than one lazy evening of reading here) or look for varnishing discussion for boats on the web. Good luck.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~