Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Cracks in varnish

I have a Keith Steele 1982 boat that I restored about 6 years ago (details and lots of questions somewhere on this site). I am going back to put a new coat or two of varnish on the exterior (I teak oil the interior). I noticed a series of cracks in the varnish, some of which are wide enough they catch on my fingernail. They do not appear to have a similar mark on the interior.

My question is should I sand them down and built multiple varnish coats (I did 6 originally) or just apply my two varnish coats and let it refill the gaps. These cracks showed up in the last year.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jerry Johnson on Saturday

My KS boat is ten years older than yours, is varnished, and does the same thing. As long as water doesn't get under it it's fine. I'd just brush it across the grain with a couple coats and move on. I think the reason it happens is due to shrinkage and expansion. It looks to me like the varnish is very thick (based on the runs) so you could just have brittleness. Might be time to strip it down and start over. I refinished wood boats like Cris Craft, etc and we never did 6 coats - four at the most and on my boat I usually sand it and put on two and call it good.