Catalina 350 International Association

I am usually pretty diligent about touching up my companionway steps to repair the wear they receive. This year I got behind and as luck would have it, I had some rain fall on them and discovered there were some thin spots in my varnish which led to water spotting. After the boat was pulled, I removed the wood and sanded out the thin spots and went about recoating with a water based varnish (as applied new) which I have used for then last several years to over coat. The sanded wood appeared a little dark so I bleached it and let it dry. When I applied the varnish is was easily 2-3 shades darker the unsanded areas. I had heard this could be that the wood was wet - so I scraped the varnish off and dried the wood a few times with a heat gun. Tonight I reapplied the varnish - again 2-3 shades darker then the original finish.

Has anyone experienced this problem ? Any suggestions?

Vineyardsailor
Aurora Blue
Hull 265

Since this is in a "wet area", if you want to do it right, I would strip-- sanding down until you have consistent color across the whole step and then go back with an oil-based varnish.

Yes, quite a lot of work, but with the solid wood, not plywood, it should give you excellent results.

Brett

We added anti-skid tape to the steps, which has helped in keeping the steps from wearing. Not covering the whole step, but strips along the top of the step so it still looks good.

R.B. wrote:We added anti-skid tape to the steps, which has helped in keeping the steps from wearing. Not covering the whole step, but strips along the top of the step so it still looks good.

We did exactly the same.