More from the “What I did last winter” photo archives.
The centerline folding leaf table in the main cabin was a mess from the day we bought the boat. And given other priorities it stayed that way while we used the boat. With the refit underway and while I was casting about for projects to complete last winter when I was unable to work on the boat while in the slip I pulled the table and went to work on it.
Like most of the woodwork and laminate on Ronin, it was in bad shape. The fiddles had been worked loose over time. The laminate was stained and dirty. The edge banding was peeling off and mostly gone. This was an easy fix and satisfying to do.
Table in rough shape:
I removed the loose fiddles and set them aside. The piano hinges and most of the locking hardware was removed and the leaves set aside.
One thing that I did before doing the actual repair work was to sand the teak and give it a good teak oiling. There was a reason why did the teak oiling was first and I’m not sure why did it but it worked out okay.
Oiling the teak:
I removed all the original teak edge banding with a chisel and sanded the exposed plywood. I had ordered new teak edge banding and started in on applying it. Now, I didn’t RTFM, which I couldn’t find anyway in my mess of a shed so I used my heat gun to soften the pre-glueded strips as I slowly worked it down the line. It was only after completing the entire project that I found out that the way to apply it was to simply use a hot iron...
The hard(er) way of apply the edge banding:
The next step was to over-drill the worn out screw holes for the loose fiddles. I filled the oversized holes, gluing in short sections of wooden dowel and sanding them flush.
Prepping the old screw holes:
Before I reinstalled the fiddles, I had to clean up the original laminate. Like the rest of the boat it was stained and dirty. Cleaning just wasn't working well enough for me so I decided to try something different. I sanded the laminate with a quarter-sheet sander and 220 grit sandpaper. For the corner work I used 3M scrub pads and sanding pads. Although some of the “texture” of the original laminate flattened out a bit, it came out looking like new. I was pleased with the results.
Cleaning up the laminate:
Along with the laminate sanding I took the sanding pads to the original chrome-plated fittings which were pitted and rough. That worked out well too.
Scrub away!:
I was able to finally add the teak fiddles, pre-drilling and attaching them with all new screws and then gluing in new teak bungs that I made from some scrap teak that I had lying around.
Waiting for the chisel and some finish sanding:
I didn’t take any pictures of the “final” product but it looks good and is in my attic waiting to be put back in the boat after I replace the cabin-sole. Another project for this coming winter...
A friendly little Black Widow spider kindly helping me with the table:
No comments:
Post a Comment