Just a few small tasks today, starting with applying the third coat of varnish to the hatch runners on Shoal Waters.
It is also time to apply some slippery gunk to the hatch itself. I made a jar of furniture wax a decade and a half ago consisting of beeswax, linseed oil and White Spirit for several projects I had back then. I made a lot more than I needed, but it has proved useful during the intervening years. I recently used it on two rope winding heads, on the teeth of the wooden gears.
Today I’ll use it on the htach.
This is the before photo, you can see that the wood is mostly untreated. It might have been treated with something originally, but years of sliding back and forth on the runners would have worn it off.
This is the after photo. I’ve applied two coats of the mixture. The white spirit acts like a solvent for the linseed oil and beeswax and penetrates the wood. The the spirit evaporates quite quickly and after that the oil slowly polymerises. The effect is to carry some of the beeswax into the wood leaving some on top of the wood.
The nice thing about this mix is that after a few days the surface of the wood is just covered with a thin layer of wax. If you get it on your hands or clothes, it is easily washed off.
The last task for today, I’m having a ‘rest’ day and not doing that much, is to cut the glass mat. I bought 2m of 1.27m wide 300g biaxial glass cloth and it needs to be cut in half.
Half of the mat covers the case side with plenty to spare, although I’ll probably need to cut it down to size a little more once it has been placed onto the pre-epoxied wood but before it is wetted out.
After this I folded both pieces up, put them into the bag it came in originally and took both the glass mat and the case side back into the workroom for the next stage.
Which will not be today !
Time for a cup of tea.