All spars were finished with a stained varnish as seen below. We took many photos (far too many to upload here), mainly to ensure that when we took the hardware and ropes off we knew where to put them back again!
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| Gaff in original state |
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| Gaff in original state
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We removed most of the hardware from the spars and then stripped them back to bare wood using a combination of heat gun, scraper, 60 grit sandpaper and long nights of manual labour in a cold garage or when weather permitted out on the drive!
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| Starting to strip back to bare wood |
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| Boom sanded - reefing pulleys |
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| Boom sanded - reefing cleats |
We suspended them from the roof beams and proceeded down the track of steadily increasing dilutions of 50%, 75%, 85%, 95%, and finally 100% varnish to achieve seven coats. Each coat was lightly sanded between with 180 grit for the first four coats then 240 grit sandpaper for the remainder.
A sideways look (not sure how that happened) at suspension in the garage as the coats progressed, the second picture showing the final coat. We kept them all suspended for around 3 weeks to ensure maximum curing and hardening before storing back on the roof rafters.
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