Finally!!!!

Finally... ready... for... varnish!  After a long winter of sanding, recoating, and sanding again, I finally hit the hull with 220 last night and wiped down the whole kitten kaboodle with thinner.   So, finally my baby is ready for varnish!  I still need to mount the hip brace plates, but those will be done in the next couples days as I start to build my paint booth. 

Speaking of which, I was going to do a 'tent' style booth from small diameter PVC pipe and plastic sheeting on the walls and floor, with a furnace filter in one wall and a fan blowing out in the other end.  The idea being that the fan will suck filtered air through the booth, providing me enough filtered ventilation so that I won't get asphyxiated from varnish fumes.  Ideas?  Critiques?  I'm looking to get as dust-free as possible without killing myself in the process! 

~Chris


4 replies:

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RE: Finally!!!!

Let me know how it works. I did my WD10 without the "booth" and the dust was a bear to deal with. I am building a WD12 right now and would be interested in how the booth works for you.

Your thoughts are exactly in line with what I have considered, should work.

 

David

RE: Finally!!!!

You should wear a respirator with an organic vapor cartridge. 

I don't know where you are varnishing, but if you are in a relatively clean place, I found that putting an old drop cloth on the floor around where I was working and keeping it wet helped keep the dust down to a miniumum - I didn't use a tent.  However, if you are in a very dusty shop with lots of places you can't clean (like dusty shelves, stacked lumber, tools, etc.) a tent would help.

RE: Finally!!!!

Thanks for the info Kathy.  I'm working in my "boat shop", also known as the garage (I don't know who had the crazy idea that a garage is for cars!), so its pretty darn dusty.  I'm starting to clean it up and will be vacuuming as much as I can, but there will still be a lot of dust, hence the tent. 

Gone are the days when I'll varnish without a respirator and VOC cartridges... I won't even use paint thinner without one! 

Did you varnish all in one shot, or flip the boat to do the hull and deck seperately?  If the latter, how did it work out with the seam?

~Chris

RE: Finally!!!!

I did the hull first up to the shear line (good practice since it won't be seen much and will get scratched up right away so a few drips and runs aren't a big deal).  The next day I flipped it and did the deck.  I used the System 3 WR-LPU and it worked well doing it this way - I don't notice a line between the hull and deck. 

 RE: dusty garage.  I varnished in my parent's garage (mine is full of my son's car project and it was too cold to varnish outside in my work area).  Their garage is pretty clean, but my Dad does have his wood shop in there so there is some dust.  I think if you can minimize other people walking around and breezes blowing dust around, put down a wet drop cloth where you are walking around, it should get you a long way toward minimizing the dust.  I also misted water into the air around the boat to help keep dust down and to raise humidity for the LPU  (someone suggested hanging damp sheets around the boat - kind of a dust-catching tent, but I didn't go to that length).

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