Given that the finish on the old boat seemed to be a quarter inch thick hodge podge of varnish, I figured while the boat was disassembled that I would take the finish back down to bare wood and build up a new brighter finish than the muddy brown of the current state of affairs.

As you can see in the above picture, the front varnish is so dark and heavy that no grain pattern or texture comes through anymore. The stain is also, in my opinion, much too dark, doing little to highlight the beauty of the mahogany veneer.

Below is the process of peeling, sanding, sanding some more, staining, and varnishing the front deck and window frames.

The same treatment was given to the gunwales and transom.

The inner frames and planking also had some flaking of the finish. This was a hard decision to make whether or not to sand down to bare wood and refinish these, as the wood here is white oak rather than mahogany veneer - a much harder and durable wood that makes sanding to bare more difficult. On top of the wood hardness, there are a thousand different nooks and crannies which would drive anyone insane. But in the end, I figured it was worth the effort.

The big question here was what colour to stain the white oak. The planking here doesn’t carry nearly the beauty of grain texture and pattern as does the mahogany gunwales and decking, and so it would never be able to achieve the golden luster to match the other wood. I chose instead a colour that would contrast against the blue of the carpet and upholstery - opting for a dark and slightly cherry red stain.