water marks from crazed vanrish..

Pete is restoring this OT Yankee. The original varnish was pretty crazed, and left water marks. I don't like to bleach and not sure it would get rid of all of this, ideas?

 

Chris, could always try the old stand by, sandpaper! I would recommend a teak cleaner though which has worked well for me many times and save the skin on Pete's hands.

 

Aaaa yes, sanding, but I don't think that will resolve the problem altogether.

 

Why don't you like to bleach? That would solve the problem.

 

Could you explain what you've done in the process of stripping so far? It appears you've done at least one coat of chemical stripper. Ive only stripped one canoe so far, but can give you the viewpoint of a newbie I had to strip the first time going over the whole canoe in sections adding stripper and scraping and brushing twice. I then went back at a later date and did the whole canoe one more time; this time rinsing good and going right back through with the tw part teak cleaner. When buying this...read the customer comments because I was glad I had purchased two qts of each part. I ended up needing both qts of the part 2 to fully neutralize the one qt ofpart one and get rid of the black color it turned the wood. Sanding.....Ughhhhh. When sanding, I quickly learned that whatever is done to the easier to get to surfaces, especially if power sanders are used, is then quiet time involving to get consistency in the harder places. Like up in and around where the inwale is attached and up in the ends , especially around the stem , etc. I probably spent 40 hrs sanding, twenty in the big surfaces, then twenty in the not so nice places to get the consistency I spoke of. I used 120 ad 180 grit. I do have other projects and plan on taking a canoe that had been cut down to make it a sq end and just stripping in a two time process and just quickly giving it a sanding. I want to see the results of that compared to toiling for many hours. I like the patina of my first stripping/ varnishing, but am thinking maybe a lot of the time I spent really may not have made much difference. I'm interested in knowing what you've done so far to get to this point.

 

I've done many canoes, breaching takes the natural color out of the cedar and I guess you just need to find a stain combination that will give it the "natural" look again. The marks are crazed all over and I'm afraid the bleach might lift it unevenly.

 

Chris - what kind of bleach were you using? Household bleach will do what you describe, but not products like Te-Ka (these are not the same at all). They leave the wood looking fantastic, and the results are completely different from household bleach. And they work on all kinds of wood, removing stains but leaving the patina - on oak, cedar (red and white), mahogany, ash, etc.