We decided to leave the sunshine of the south east and go up to BB last week as we had arranged to meet Pete Hill who was going to help us remove the bad water stains which we had following the very cold weather last winter.
The weather at Napton has not been good over the last few weeks with a fair amount of rain and last week was no exception with only one really nice day Thursday when we managed a pleasant cruise to Braunston and back with an overnight stop near bridge 103 and a BBQ.
The main work to be done was the water stains on the light oak veneered panels and the stains on the oak shelves. They had been caused by condensation either running down behind the panels and finding a way out onto the shelves or dripping down from a ceiling panel. The condensation was caused when we had the stove on during the winter when the outside temperature was minus 10c, the coldest it has been since we had the boat. Pete had identified the areas where there is probably a gap in the polystyrene insulation and therefore where he needed to inject some spray foam to cure the problem.
We had major thin stains running down on each of three panels that Pete attacked by first rubbing down with very fine sand paper, then putting on some undiluted bleach which was left for about 30 minutes before being washed off. After this some clear satin varnish was applied and when dry Briwax clear was put on using 0000 grade wire wool- they now look good as new.
I set to work (with some guidance from Pete) on the shelves which are solid oak as follows:-
As the shelves have been waxed it was necessary to scrape this off and then a layer of the oak shelf using a Skarsten finishing scraper (large red wooden handle in the picture) and a Bahco 625 scraper on which much more pressure could be applied.
Picture of the two scrapers used to deal with the water stains on the solid oak wooden parts.
Once the stains had been removed it was then sanded with the fine paper and wiped clean with white spirit. When dry satin varnish was applied and then when that was dry Briwax clear was put on with 0000 grade wire wool.
In all it took all day but was well worth the effort.
Next trip is to Welford in early September for bottom blacking etc.
