Refinishing deck on old model - fixing color disparity

[highflyingbison]

Hi all, 

Bought an old schooner model off eBay because I liked her lines. She was in bad shape, needed all new rigging and various repairs. I had originally intended to just clean the wood and redo the rigging, but ended up removing everything from the deck so i could sand and refinish it (there were a few plastic adornments like lifeboats on the deck that I removed because they were ugly and broken, but beneath them the deck was unfinished and stood out like a sore thumb, and even the finished parts of the deck had issues like uneven/blotchy and "sandy" varnish, so I just dove in).

I sanded the deck with 400 grit sandpaper and applied some Minwax clear gloss polyurethane, but the resulting color is uneven. May have overdone it on the sanding too, since I was trying to get the rest of the deck to match the lightness of the unsanded parts beneath the lifeboats. Had to re-mark some of the plank lines with lead, and I'm suspecting the deck itself was originally one piece, since some of the discolorations travel across many of the planks in a sweeping motion, as you would see in a large board (see pictures). 

 

I am new to all of this, never sanded, stained or varnished before, so I would be grateful for any advice. Would staining be the right answer to this? The deck sidewalls still have the original color, and since that didnt match the area under the lifeboats, I imagine some color must have been added during the original build. Could you identify what the original finish was, or point me in the right direction/technique to match it?

[Dziadeczek]

Since nobody wrote anything so far, I will give it my three pennies. It appears to me, that the modeler used a soft wood plywood for the decking and tried to score it (with a pencil?) to mark its planks. The scoring is not very well visible, sometimes the natural grain of wood is more pronounced than that and overwhelms it. Also, there appears to be a few rather large holes in the center, between the mast holes.

Because of all this and overall unevenness of the wood and its blotchy appearance, I would tend to rather replace the entire decking, using either individual strips of some hardwood (like fruitwood species, or perhaps birch or (best IMHO) beech wood, or even very lightly colored holly), with one edge blackened, and glued them tightly, running along the center axis line, next to each other ON TOP of your old deck. Or - if you don't have the possibility to cut those strips yourself, make the entire deck from a thin (1/16 to 1/32 in. birch aircraft plywood and score the run of the planks on it with a hard pencil, like 4H or so. Select the piece of plywood that has possibly the smallest, most even and regular grain.

But before all of this, you will have to thoroughly scrape off all your polyurethane from the old deck, since the wood glue will not adhere to it. The best way to do it is with a piece of sharp edge of a broken glass (ducktape the rest of glass to avoid hurting yourself!) or an industrial razorblade, or even a sharp edge of a chisel. Then make a precise cardboard template of the new deck making sure that it fits tightly around the bulkheads extensions of your bulwarks and other structures on top of the old deck. Only then draw its shape with a pencil on the plywood and cut it carefully with a sharp exacto knife.

Replace the deck, gluying it on top of the old deck. The small height difference afterwards should not present a big problem, I think.

Next step is to paint your new deck wit a liquid called WOOD CONDITIONER by Minwax (obtained in places like Home Depot, or such) - this will prepare the wood for even staining without blotches and/or oiling it with Danish oil. When the deck is still wet from this wood conditioner, stain it (if you want it) and/or oil.

I'd personally rather not stain it at all, just oil it.

No other glossy laquers, polyurethane, or such!

Edited August 1, 2019 by Dziadeczek

[Jaager]

Quarter sawn Maple veneer - A good steel ruler with a tapered edge and a sharp luthiers  knife - with practice = scale planking.  WoodCraft if you have no alternate vendors.

As Dziadeczek says get the finish off and down to raw wood.

Go easy on the calking seam simulation and consider a Walnut shade rather than black.  Subtle, rather than smacking a viewer between the eyes might be worth considering.

A glossy finish on the deck of a working schooner would be death to work on - often wet and almost always moving.

Shellac is an alternate finish - 1/2 strength for first coat.  If it is too shiny, 0000 steel wool can knock that down.  Shellac also meets Oddball's Credo.

[Roger Pellett]

A dissenting opinion-  Leave it alone!  From your photos it doesn’t look that bad.  Assuming that you intend to reattach deck houses, hatches, etc, they will break up the pattern.

 

This appears to be a nice piece of folk art.  Much nicer than the decorator models we often see.  The somewhat haphazardly scribed deck is in keeping with the folk style of the model.

 

Roger

[highflyingbison]

Thank you all for your advice! As much as I wanted to leave it alone, I couldn't. Besides the color, the existing deck surface was uneven, a bit high on the port side, so I decided to follow Dziadeczek's recommendation to redo the entire deck. I sanded it down level and took the whole surface down a tiny bit to make room for new 1mm planking. Looks like the hull is all one piece, which surprised me. Ordered some milled boxwood planks instead of beechwood, because I found the boxwood in the size I wanted. Going to redo all three deck surfaces with planks, and also the bulwark. Depending how it looks when it is laid down, may not even stain it. Need to do some light finishing sanding while I wait for the wood, might start repainting the hull, though might do that after the deck. For now, it's just gonna sit here with some of the deck features placed on it. 

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by highflyingbison

[Jaager]

Your last photo - the masts' length  - is it a matter of perspective that they look longer than a schooner would actually carry?

[highflyingbison]

I think the perspective is making it look more extreme, but I think you're right. Before I took it apart, I was thinking the sails just barely fit height-wise. Will look into the correct mast height and probably trim the bottom of the masts, or just insert them further into the deck, they werent that deep when I took them out.