Toe Rails - DONE!

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Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
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START OF TRIP
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(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

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Late in the summer of 2012, just before we re-launched Blowin' Bubbles early in 2013, we completely re-finished all the brightwork (exterior woodwork) on the boat.  In our case. the brightwork consists of the toe rail (or gunnel), a hand railing on the pilot house, the area around the main hatch, and a few little parts in the cockpit.  By sailboat standards, that isn't very much.... 

That said, in just two years, the brightwork looked as if it had never been touched!  It was looking horrible.  After some research, I discovered that what I thought was "GENIUS" at the time, turned out to be a big mistake....  You see, in 2012, I sanded everything down to bare wood and instead of using varnish to re-finish everything, I mixed a 2 part clear epoxy and covered everything with it...  It looked beautiful!

"Brightwork" circa 2012

However, by early this year it was looking a little tired and in the last few months is has started to look terrible...  Now the really bad part.....  Have you ever tried to remove cured epoxy from something?  For the last three days it has felt like we were sanding granite!

What was beautiful and going to last a long time was all cloudy and anywhere there was even a pinhole, water had penetrated and partially lifted chunks of epoxy.  In other words, it was a mess...

So, Shelley and I have now completely sanded (12 belts, 36 disks and a bunch of little sanding pads) all the old epoxy off and gone with a satin marine grade varnish.  We think it looks great...

Today we get to clean all the sawdust and mess off the deck!... 

Cheers!