Touching up external varnish

[Ruffles]

I'm re-doing the varnish on the spruce spars of my little sailing dinghy. It's a high peaked gaff (I think that's the term!). The mast was a bit battered and stained so I've stripped that.

The gaff and the boom though are in pretty good nick, probably because they spend much of their life with the sail wrapped round them. There are some dents and scratches. Can I get away without stripping the lot? Seems a waste of varnish. Can I rub down the knackered bits and paint over the old varnish?

 

[gary3029]

yes you could do that, however depends on how thick the good varnish and what condition is it really in. If you have areas where the varnish is poor then you will have to build it up to match good varnish. It can be a painful thought but you would be better to strip it down and start again. This way you will know that the first coat is sound. Remember if you have 10 coats of varnish on it will only be as good as that 1st coat. I have tried to bodge bad areas to good areas and in the end I stripped the whole of my topsides, now I know it is sound

 

[Ruffles]

Fair point. The spars aren't that big. In fact the mast isn't much bigger than a boat hook!

 

[SteamShipW]

I've had some success by:
a) scrape off any loose varnish
b) apply one or two coats of varnish to the bare wood
c) rub down the whole lot using wet or dry (wet)
d) clean with white spirit
e) varnish as usual

The above sequence prevents you rubbing down the bare wood into little dimples because the bare wood is always softer than the old varnish around it.

Last thought. I've found Tonkenoise the easiest varnish to keep looking good with minor repairs here and there.

Here it is!