Varnishing exterior wood in Florida and Caribbean

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by Cadence

It could be thousands of ill conceived hours? It was an opinion no facts implied.
Why pay the big bucks for teak, if your going to varnish it, use pine.

Very true! You can also save money in the short term by not changing your oil!!

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

Very true! You can also save money in the short term by not changing your oil!!

If you are going to encapsulate the value of the teak why bother? And to think teak and mahogany were dunnage at one time. Varnish the hell out of mahogany, inside. Paint it outside. Now if you have a full paid crew, varnish the mahogany and oil the teak.

[ronbo1]

I’m a big fan of Cetol with an annual maintenance coat of Cetol Gloss. Though never in FL it spent 10 years in the Chesapeake and now 7 years on LI, NY, never needing to be stripped down to bare wood.

A Gozzard 44 has a lot of teak and varnish is too labor intensive for me. Most people look at my boat and think it’s varnish but some areas are getting dark from buildup (not orange as was the problem when too much base coat was continually applied year after year).

At this point it’s time to start over for another 18 years!

[SVTatia]

Originally Posted by atmartin

For all you Cetol users, a question:

A few old salts have told me that Cetol is water-permeable, more so than varnish or paint. I've seen some empirical evidence of this on customer's boats, especially overheads. Where the finish is unmolested, but there's clearly mildew inside the grain of the wood.

I am using cetol for many many years, I have never experienced this.

Originally Posted by ronbo1

I’m a big fan of Cetol with an annual maintenance coat of Cetol Gloss. Though never in FL it spent 10 years in the Chesapeake and now 7 years on LI, NY, never needing to be stripped down to bare wood....!

+ 1

4 coats of natural teak then 3 coats marine gloss. 1 coat yearly maintenance.
I used Cetol on my boat in places much hotter than Florida such as northern Brazil.
Once a year recoat: clean with moist rug, a light rub with purple scotchbrite pad and recoat.

2-4 hours a year... I can handle that without compromising my other time with doing nothing...
People spend many more hours than that mowing their lawns!