How do I know when it's time to refinish? I have a 17LT kayak that I love and have used for 12 seasons. It's stored in a garage so it only sees the sun when in use. It still looks great. Should I refinish now while it looks great or wait for some indicator that it's needed?
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RE: When to refinish?
» Submitted by hspira - Sun, 8/28/22 » 5:01 PM
Hi Jr125,
if it still 'looks great', i would not refinish it. (if you need something to do, i would just start another boat :) )
my experience is similar to yours where i keep my boats in the garage, out of the sun, and put them away clean and dry.
while i can't claim to get 12 years, i have usually been in the 7 to 9 year range for the boats the get used and i have one boat in the fleet that is approaching its 25th birthday and it was refinished once 10 years ago and looks pretty much perfect. refinishing for me has been mostly driven by scratches and other little accidents which damaged the paint or varnish or worse...that motivated a refinish.
so how do you know its time to refinish? - basically one of two things....1) the varnish starts to fail from sun exposure. it loses its shine is the first indicator....then it actually can fracture, flake; or 2) you accumuate enough scrapes and scratches and perhaps temporary repairs.....that it doesn't look great...and you pull off all the fittings and start a refinish job.
i think boats that are stored out of the sun, clean and dry can go a very long time. fwiw, i have never refinished based on the varnish failing....and i am pretty certain that is related to clean, dry, out-of-the sun storage.
h