#10 – Better living through Chemistry?

Time to give Total Lust a try

One of the slow-moving projects on Nora has been figuring out a safe and secure way to climb into the boat. Her freeboard – the height of the sides above the waterline – isn’t particularly high, but the deck inside is still a considerable drop-in for boarding passengers. The Lyman designers thoughtfully included a three-step ladder that mounts inside the cockpit, switchable from port to starboard as needed. Like many things on Nora, the ladder was crying for attention, and I needed to come up with a secure way down the steps of the steepest staircase in the world without a handrail.

If you’ve been following from the beginning, you already know we came up with a varnished cherry “boarding pole,” topped with a handle of French whipping to give boarders something to cling onto. The other two parts of this process included installing vertical rod holders at the appropriate spots on the gunwale and striping and re-varnishing the ladder.

With the boarding pole part of the project completed with ten coats of varnish, I used a hole saw to cut through the side deck for the rod holder and discovered another little problem. The balsa core had rotted out. The ¾ inch space between layers of fiberglass was basically hollow. That needed to be strengthened if I intended to mount the rod holders in something stronger than Jell-o®. My quick install of two rod holders was turning into something much more complicated.

In modern boat building (and repair) the balsa wood coring material of 1975 has been replaced by divinycell, a foam made of PVC. It actually feels as light and about as strong as the balsa that I used to make my pinewood derby race car back in Cub Scouts. One way to repair failed coring is to cut the top layer of fiberglass off completely, clean out what is left of the rotted balsa, lay in sheets of divinycell, saturate everything with epoxy resin, and reattach the top layer of fiberglass. That would be the proper way.

My alternative method was to dig and vacuum out as much of the old core as could be reached from the 2” hole cut for the rod holder, then inject foam as far into the hole as I could reach with the straw that came with the spray can. It comes out as a liquid but quickly expands into closed cell PVC foam. Once it had finished cooking I pushed two inch pieces of a pre-made closed cell sheet, saturated with epoxy resin, as far as I could into the hole in all directions. To double down on the strength of the gunwale I made an 18” long backing plate to go on the inside to brace the deck fore and aft of the boarding pole. It ended up even more secure than expected.

The final step in the process was to attend to the three-step ladder covered in failed varnish. Sanding it all down to bare wood with all the nooks and crannies would be a tremendously time-consuming boring job. Days of prep would be followed by another two weeks of one-coat-per-day varnish. Terese was leaving for a four-day girl’s weekend in Key West so I researched the advances in varnish technology to see if I could knock it out in the allotted time -- heretical thinking for true varnish devotees.

Step one was to use a chemical stripper to remove the old finish. A stainless steel wire brush helped get decades of varnish out of the treads and crevices of the ladder. Terese’s Dewalt sander with 60 grit, progressively down to 220 grit, smoothed the surface. It wasn’t perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good enough, right? I was ready to move on to the big experiment with Total Lust.

Traditional varnish requires 24 hours between coats and a light sanding at least every other coat if not every one. A company called Total Boat has come out with a new product that allows additional coats every hour without sanding. At least according to their ads. Up to five coats per day.

This summer I had been lured into trying a different boat maintenance product whose ads appeared in my Facebook feed. They claimed to have created a miracle elixir to remove mold stains from vinyl boat cushions. I gave it a try and was gobsmacked when the damn stuff worked, like possibly even better than advertised. Maybe there have been advances in chemistry. Could this Total Boat varnish really work?

I shopped around locally but couldn’t find Total Boat anywhere. Reverting to Amazon I found that there are actually three products they make, two of which I would need for my project. The first was Total Boat’s Wood Sealer. They recommended three coats. Using a foam brush, I applied the first coat. It was supposed to seal up the surface of the wood and make a nice base for the varnish. It went on super easy, almost like water. Immediately the ladder looked dramatically better. The wood glowed with a nice golden hue.

Within two hours the surface was dry to the touch, so on went another coat. After another two hours the third and final coat of the wood sealer was applied. Just as advertised, so far.

The following morning, I started with the varnish. Total Boat has two choices for gloss varnish: Gleam or Lust. I was going for that wet look, super glossy, just varnished look, so obviously Lust was calling to me. I couldn’t tell what was the difference from reading the specs.

Unlike the wood sealer, Lust doesn’t go on like water. It applies like traditional varnish. Almost thick. It was easy to work with but as it seemed to be curing quickly I had to move fast. I could feel the brush slowing down as I got to the final few strokes. It made sense that it would cure quickly if it was going to be ready for the next coat within an hour or two.

I was back in 90 minutes for the second coat. Without sanding between coats I had to pay attention to where I was applying the Lust as it was gloss over gloss. I didn’t want any holidays -- gaps in the finish where the brush missed a spot. Four coats went on easily on this second day, bringing my total up to seven.

The following morning I knocked out three more coats, including a sprinkling of non-skid grit on the second to last coat while still wet. Ten coats in less than three days. Pretty impressive.

Now the proof will be in how well it holds up.