Varnishing oars

[AntarcticPilot]

I brought the wooden oars for my dinghy home to strip and refinish them. As a joint attaching part of the blade of one oar was coming apart, I used epoxy resin to glue the blade back together and put a coat of epoxy on the rest of both oars. I then put a coat of varnish over the epoxy to protect it from UV. Do I need a second coat of varnish? I'm not too worried about appearances! I'm going to add a Turks Head at the end of the leathering to stop the oars from sliding through the rowlocks.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

Ideally yes. Perversely, coating wood with epoxy isn't a good idea on an item that gets lots of wear, as any physical or UV damage is such a load of work to put right. A soft and patch-able coating (trad varnish) is better than hard and chip prone.

So a couple more coats and then treat them nicely. Even paint the blades white which is the perfect UV coating, would help.

 

[stu9000]

I did the same thing last year with a lovely pair of old oars, one of which had a split blade.
I glass taped the blade tips to protect against future splits.

Interesting to read that the softer varnish is better.
I would definitely put on at least two coats of varnish to protect the epoxy against uv damage (I have failed to do this in the past and seen all my hard work turn to white flakey pap).

I did buy plastic collars but could not get the right size. Instead I have whipped with para-cord. To finish the whipping I put a loop of string under the last 5 or so turns and then used a hammer and length of wood to knock the loop out, pulling the bitter end under the whipping. You probably know this already but im somewhat proud of myself. I need to learn how to do a Turks Head though.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Thanks. I had to use epoxy to glue the oar back together, so coating the rest of the oar seemed like a good use of the excess! But another coat of varnish seems like a good idea. The oars have a copper strip binding the end of the blades.

Turk's heads are actually quite easy; if you can do a clove hitch, you can do a Turk's head; it's only a few tucks more. I need the book in front of me to do Turk's heads with 4 or more circuits (not counting doubling), but they're mostly easy.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Ok, second coat applied!