It is nearing time to shift gears. Hull sanding will eventually end At that point I will move to the deck. It remains too hot to happily work below decks (>105 degrees in there) and I want to be prepared to paint the hull in the fall on those perfect days. My HVLP system is ready.

The plan at this point is first to finish stripping and prepping the teak. Some of it must be bleached. Runoff from that can be tough on a finish so no new finish will be there for it to run onto. All the teak will be treated with Semco teak sealer. After experimenting with this product for two years I am quite satisfied. If two coats are put on one after the other every four months, the teak stays just beautiful. Although I have never done all the teak at once, I estimate that it will take only two hours to accomplish. Compare that to the absolute drudgery of applying and maintaining ten coats of varnish. I know Hinckley would be horrified and the Semco finish looks "natural" rather then being that deep, peer-down-into coating. Oh, well.

The bedding under the teak is old and flaky and should be replaced. That is impossible. The teak is brittle and the stainless slot head machine screws just do not turn without the liberal use of PB Blaster and the serious bite of big Vise-Grips. Having replaced part of the toe rail it is clear that the only way to remove this teak is to break it all to pieces. Rather than do this insane thing I performed an experiment that has promise. Using a small curved veneer saw I cut a thin slot about 5 mm deep flat with the deck and under the rail. This tiny slot will be filled with Life-Caulk. The repair is not obvious if you are not looking for it.

Almost all of the deck hardware is in my garage. Remaining hardware will have to come off. The deck will be sanded, primed, filled, sanded, primed, filled, and then painted with two part poly. I am thinking about using KiwiGrip for the nonskid.