Puffer: Wood parts

One of the first projects I undertook when I bought my sailboat was to refinish all the wood parts. I think I chose to work on the wood first because it's familiar to me. Most projects I have completed have been wood-based. Anyways, I started by removing all of the metal hardware and taking all of the wood parts apart. In order to get back down to the bare mahogany, I used a paint/epoxy remover to make sure I got all the original clear coat off. The next step was to sand everything starting with a 60 grit paper all the way down to a 220 grit to make sure it had a nice smooth finish. I used my random orbital sander for most of the sanding. When I got down to the bare wood with all the stains sanded away, I wiped everything down with a microfiber cloth to remove all of the dirt and dust. I used about 4 or 5 coats of spar varnish (a marine grade finish) from the local hardware store to finish and seal everything off. I chose a high gloss finish, but that's just personal preference.

 Finished daggerboard^

 Finished rudder...

 I wish I had more "before" photos to compare the finished product to, but I think that the one above is the only one I have where you can see the rudder how it was when I bought it.

 The thwart seat is there for a couple reasons: 1) to give additional support to the daggerboard trunk so it doesn't sway from side to side, 2) to sit on when using the puffer as a rowboat (it has oarlocks on the top edge, barely visible above the round hole in the photo). As you can see above, the original thwart was totally rotted out so I had to build a new one. I used birch plywood and drew everything out on the board with a square before making any cuts. I finished it the same way as the rest of the wood.