renovating varnished sidedecks - moved from dinghy

I think one pot is always safer for older wooden boats, especially if the wood isn't in 100% condition and definitely if you're not sure what's been used in the past. Reserve two pot for new decks or when you are putting a new coat on existing two pot in good condition. One pot seems more flexible and better on tired decks. If you go to the CVRDA forum you'll find out about other options... there's some sort of pond sealer (honestly!) that people rave about for elderly wood.

Edited by JimC - 04 May 11 at 9:02am

The pond sealer Jim refers to is called G4 and was originally designed for the boat industry and was then found to be an excellent pond sealer. Its also much cheaper if you buy it at garden centres. The main advantage is that you can get several  coats on very quickly. Used as a primer it has given some very good results but ideally it needs a coat or two of varnish to provide uv protection.

Yes garden centres are the place. Make sure you get the clear version black doesnt look to good. I have used it as a primer on clean bare wood and it has worked very well. I used it on decks but it is difficult in ribbed boats where there are lots of corners. Make sure you dont let it pool and spread it very thin. Any pools bubble and go white which is annoying. I used it on the decks of my classic Hornet in 2008 I think and it still looks good. You do need to uv protect it with varnish although I know of one merlin (36) that did several seasons without and still looked good.

Originally posted by sawman has anyone got any feelings with regards the brush versus pads/roller debate?

Depends on how good you are at painting... If, like me, you're really bad at it then using a roller to put on a smooth even coat and then a brush to smooth over the roller texture will give a much more even result with far fewer runs than using just a paint brush on large areas.

If you are a competent painter I doubt it matters.

If its something like a clinker boat or even more a boat with a ribbed interior then the roller will be more trouble than its worth.

If you use a Harris varnish miniroller, then the bubble problem foam rollers give goes away.

G4 destroys rollers, however - something to do with the nasty chemicals. BTW, G4 won't go on top of existing varnish.