Onne van der Wal had to do lots of small jobs to make his 1986 Grand Banks 32, Snow Goose, look like new again, but there were three big jobs. The first big job was the installation of the Raymarine electronics, the second was the sanding of the teak decks, and the third one, which he saved for last, was the stripping, sanding and varnishing of the sole.
“I must have worked on it for about four or five days,” Onne says. Fortunately, rather than spend the entire time on his knees in the boat, he was able to take some of the panels to his shop.
The first product Onne used was Total Boat Strip. “It’s sort of the consistency of mayonnaise,” he says. He applied it an eight-of-an-inch thick with a foam brush and left it on overnight. The next day he used a scraper and a kitchen spatula to remove the majority of the old varnish. “That stuff works like a banshee,” Onne says. He removed the remaining varnish with sandpaper and then cleaned the surface with Total Boat Dewaxer and Surface Prep.
He applied two coats of Total Boat Varnish Sealer, giving them a light sanding in between, then added two layers of Total Boat Lust Gloss and one coat of Total Boat Lust Matte.
Onne decided to go for five coats to finish the job. “When you go through the trouble of stripping something down, why skimp,” he says. “But now you walk in, and it goes, ‘Baboom.’ It jumps right out at you.”
“It was a big job,” Onne says. “But when you see the before and after, it was well worth it.”
You can watch Onne’s DIY video below.
