[Alberg30] Sitka Spruce Boom

[Scott Wallace]

Gordon,

Thank you so much for your timely advise!  I just returned from Cortez, Florida
(my first trip to Florida) and my newly acquired Rhodes Meridian has a
beautiful sitka Spruce mast and boom!  They will need some work, so you can bet
I will clean and bleach, sand and then apply the initial coat of West Epoxy!

Thanks again!

Scott Wallace, S/V WATERMARK

Gordon LACO wrote:

> Hello -
>
> I used to love to look after my sitka spars.... here is how we did it.
>
> We sanded with 120 grit, and bleached black spots out with a 10% javex
> bleach and water solution.  We sheathed the spars with one coat of West
> Epoxy (no cloth!) sanded, then layered up 8 coats of Epifanes varnish wet
> sanding with 180 between each coat (some guys use 220 but you don't have
> to).  Epifanes is the clearest and seems to have the best UV survivability.
>
> The Epoxy trick gave the varnish a hard enough underlayer to help resist
> chips caused by shackles etc hitting the spar.  I used to give it a sanding
> then a new layer of varnish each spring - had no trouble keeping the mast
> and boom looking perfect for 11 years.  Before learning to do the above we
> used to sand to bare wood, put on one coat of Minwax "clear" stain - looks
> like water - then three coats of thinned varnish.  After that we layered up
> eight coats of uncut varnish.  We still got dings from shackles etc and were
> constantly dealing with black spots.  The epoxy treatment solved that.
>
> Gord Laco #426 Surprise
>
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