Interior Makeover

4 May 1998

When we bought Seaquestor one of the things that we didn't like was the relatively dark interior. The interior was dark because it was finished in a mixture of fake-wood-grain formica and teak trim. The forward bulkhead in the salon had been redone in white formica by a previous owner and we decided to finish the job by painting all of the dark wood-grain formica with white semi-gloss paint.

Last fall (October 1997) after the boat was hauled I removed all of the doors and other removable wood trim. I then applied two coats of gloss varnish to the remaining trim and started to work on stripping and refinishing the sole. The sole turned out to be a big job. I carefully masked the sole and then used paint/varnish remover to strip off the old varnish. Due to the low temperatures in Maine in October, I had to apply up to three coats of varnish remover to get all of the old surface off. I then washed the sole to neutralize the paint remover. After the sole was completely dry, I progressively sanded it with 150, 220 and finally 320 grit paper. After cleaning up, I applied two coats of West System epoxy with a foam roller to seal the sole. The next step was to thoroughly wash the epoxy to remove the amine blush and then to sand it smooth with 320 and 400 grit paper. After cleanup (washing and then tacking with a tack cloth), I applied three coats of Minwax gloss spar urethane to the sole.

I took the doors and trim that I removed home for the winter and gradually varnished them to a smooth high gloss finish. The first door required something like 14 coats of varnish to achieve the finish I wanted. However, I learned as I continued varnishing and the last door I did took only 5 coats to get the same finish quality.

In early April 1998 I made my first visit of the spring to the boat and reinstalled the doors and trim. Unfortunately it was too cold to do any other work on the boat. I returned to the boat in mid-April and began the job of painting the wood-grain formica bulkheads white. In the salon I decided to try a water based paint from Petit. I prepared the bulkheads by thoroughly washing, masking and then sanding with 220 grit paper. I then rolled on two coats of the white paint. I found the paint difficult to get a completely smooth finish with (possibly due to the low temperatures I was working at (~45-50^oF). Consequently, I decided to switch to a one part urethane paint for the forward cabin.

I returned to the boat on 27 April to observe the launching and to finish the interior painting. I washed, masked and sanded the bulkheads in the forward stateroom and rolled on (thin foam roller) two coats of Petit Easypoxy semi-gloss white paint. The only difficulty I had was that the paint tended to bleed under the masking tape onto the wood trim. Consequently, I have a lot of careful detail sanding to look forward to. After I finished the painting, I sanded the sole withj 220 grit paper, washed it and then tacked it off with a new tack cloth. Finally, I applied two final coats of Minwax gloss spar urethane.

I still have to paint the bulkheads in the galley and the nav station and to apply a few more coats of varninh to the trim where the paint bled under the masking. Nevertheless, the boat is much brighter and looks great.

This page posted 4 May 1998 by Todd Dunn expet@unb.ca