How do you revarnish the the inside of the hull on a W/C canoe?

The varnish on my EM White is getting thin and needs another couple coats. It's in good shape without much exposed wood, except for a few small dings. I have it cleaned up pretty good and am at the point where I'm ready to lightly sand it. My questions are do I need to do any additional cleaning with TSP or anything before I sand or can I skip that. Is my plan to lightly sand with 220 grit, clean up the dust(I don't have tack cloth) and then revarnish all I need to do? Any helpful tips are appreciated, thanks.
View attachment 143607
View attachment 143607

Wish I had one in that kind of shape. Light sanding and new varnish is all you need. I would got with a finer grit than 220. Use a vacum clean with bristles, than a tack rag. Use a bristle brush. Nice canoe.

That looks good. A light sanding or even just a maroon Scotchbrite pad to dull the surface. If it was me I would sand with 220 then a quick going over with the Scotchbrite pad, dampen a rag with thinner to wipe after the vacuum in leu of a tack cloth. Do one or two rib and plank bays at a time from gunnel to gunnel so you don’t have to to deal with keeping a wet edge.
Jim

ppine said:

Wish I had one in that kind of shape. Light sanding and new varnish is all you need. I would got with a finer grit than 220. Use a vacum clean with bristles, than a tack rag. Use a bristle brush. Nice canoe.

Click to expand...

This boat was built in 98 and went unused until I bought it 4 years ago. Since then It's been used a lot and the gunnels were way past due for varnish. I did them last week and decided to do the hull while it was inside. I wonder if the varnish had gotten thin over the years and maybe should have been done when I got it.

Thanks to yours and Jims advice I got it prepped for varnish and will get to it next week. I need to order more Captains Varnish so I have enough for at least two coats. I plan to put on the second coat about 12 hours after the first without any sanding in between. I may also put on a third coat on the very bottom out to where the half ribs end.

Jim, that Scotchbright pad worked good and was course enough to scratch the old varnish on its own. Maybe eliminating the need to sand. Good advice on the application too.

If you get a good coat on the first one I would still use the Scotchbrite pad before the second coat. I have seen too many varnish failures where the layers peel off from the gloss. A quick wipe with the pad doesn’t take long and since it dulls the surface you can see where you are varnishing.
Jim

If you haven't already varnished, tack cloth is, almost certainly, available at your local hardware store and costs almost nothing. When I re-varnished my stripper this Spring, I was told (on here) that I should use tack cloth instead of wiping with an acetone-covered rag so I experimented. I wiped w/ acetone and then the tack cloth... I was amazed at how much crap was still on the hull after the acetone wipe (even though it looked clean).

Still curious, I wiped again with tack cloth and got almost nothing on the second pass.

The moral of this story is: You've got an absolutely stunning canoe, buy the tack cloth.

Gamma1214 said:

If you haven't already varnished, tack cloth is, almost certainly, available at your local hardware store and costs almost nothing. When I re-varnished my stripper this Spring, I was told (on here) that I should use tack cloth instead of wiping with an acetone-covered rag so I experimented. I wiped w/ acetone and then the tack cloth... I was amazed at how much crap was still on the hull after the acetone wipe (even though it looked clean).

Still curious, I wiped again with tack cloth and got almost nothing on the second pass.

The moral of this story is: You've got an absolutely stunning canoe, buy the tack cloth.

Click to expand...

I did go down and get some tack cloth when I decided not to apply the varnish until next week. You're right, for the price it's silly not to use it.

My only regret, now that I'm out of town at a fancy beach wedding, is that I didn't varnish my toe nails.