Transom | Varnish & More Tape Damage ...

I varnished the transom in parallel with the rub rails.

In theory this should have been straightforward and the final phase of refinishing the underside of PocketShip, but as we shall see I encountered a few problems with the paint ... again!

First I wet sanded the old varnished surface using a P400 grit. Like this.

I then masked off the painted surfaces using 3M 218 tape, as I have been doing since finding that the vinyl tape I had previously used was damaging paint when removed.

This is the transom, taped up for varnish.

I applied the first coat of varnish and pulled the tape. Unfortunately the tape tore off some of the blue and white gloss.

This is the damage to the white stripe.

And this is what happened to the blue stripe.

I left plenty of time for the paint to cure before applying the tape, so I was somewhat disappointed about this latest issue with masking tape.

I wet sanded the damaged areas to flatten the surface, ready to be touched up or repainted.

I then taped up for the second coat of varnish using 3M 244 High Precision tape, which is a lower tack than the 218. This is it.

This works well. It doesn't give quite as sharp an edge as the 218, but it doesn't damage fresh paint. It is the most precise tape in the 3M professional decorator's tape, so it will have to be used.

I wet sanded the varnish with a P400 grit and applied the second coat. This is what it looked like when I pulled the tape.

You can see the flattened out damage on the blue stripe. It was obvious that the blue and white stripes would need to be repainted, but I hadn't thought about how to do it at this stage.

Again I wet sanded the varnished transom with a P400 grit, feather edging it with the painted stripes.

Epifanes recommend doing this between coats, and it worked really well on the rub rails. This is how it looked.

The third coat of varnish was then applied. Here it is before the tape was pulled.

And here it is after.

It was starting to look really good, apart from the damaged gloss paint. I am thinning the varnish with 10% Epifanes thinners on all coats, as I did on the rub rails, and it dries with no sags or brush marks.

I applied two more coats of varnish in this way.

Ready for the seventh and final coat of varnish, I decided to wet sand the whole of the blue and white stripes at the same time as the varnish. Again a P400 grit was used. Like this.

I then touched up the damaged areas with white and blue gloss.

My plan was to completely repaint the stripes before applying the final coat of varnish. Here I have taped up for blue gloss.

I am using the 3M 218 tape here, because it doesn't damage the surface of the varnish. It dries to a harder finish than the paint.

I applied two coats of blue gloss, wet sanding between coats. I added 10% Epifanes Easy Flow to the paint, and it flowed beautifully and dried with no brush marks.

Then I did the same with the white stripe. It only needed one coat to cover well.

This is what the transom now looked like.

So we were now ready for the final coat of varnish. This is the transom taped up in readiness.

And here it is with varnish applied.

And, finally, here is the finished product. Looking very nice indeed.

It was annoying that I had experienced more tape damage, but I now know to use the low tack 244 tape on painted surfaces wherever possible.

It doesn't give as sharp an edge as the 218, but it's plenty good enough. If you didn't know which tape had been used you really couldn't tell the difference.

So that's it! The entire underside of the boat has been reworked and refinished and is now ready to be turned right way up again.

It's still pretty cold and wet here in the UK, so I will wait until the weather improves before summoning a crew to flip PocketShip ... again!