stain, stripping paint, and what to use

[BillDiCarlo]

I've started removing the paint off of my interior bright work. I have been having great success with chemical paint remover and it cleans up real nice. Once I have the paint off the wood, and give it a light sanding, is it necc to re stain or just apply the varnish? seems the wood looks pretty damn good under the paint , was just wondering which way I should go, and what brand of marine varnish should I be using. Im leaning towards satin for the interior and gloss for the exterior, Im assuming there both going to be "water resistant" etc.
In particular the drawer fronts came out outstanding, I didnt do the plywood yet, but I can see that the paint is only one layer thick ,so I dont anticapte a problem
Im going to tackle my 4 bi fold doors next, probably taking them off to work in doors. As you can see the paint is already chipping off by itself and is not very thick
can you believe someone painted the interior this color??

[evansjw44]

I use chem stripping for my bright work. Once I get the finish off I give the wood one more shot of stripper and then a wash off with alcohol and bronze wool. That pulls most of the old stain out. Sometimes I have to bleach out some stains. Then sanding, new stain and finish. Your Challenger is somewhat like my Corinthian. Sandusky Paint Co sells most of the old CC stains. Mine uses a lot of CC Walnut. Your's could be another color but the process is the same. For finish I do two coats of Interlux 1026 Sealer with a light scuffing with Scotchbright between coats. The four interior I'll do four coats of Inertlux Jet Speed varnish and two coats of Benjamin Moore Satin Finish varnish.

Interlux has some of the CC stains but not all. I should note that if you have water sgtains then you need to fix the leak before you finish or you'll just be wasting time.

[57 chris]

Hi Bill,
I can't believe someone would choose paint over natural finish but hey, that's what makes the world go around. I didn't have paint removal to deal with but the wood on my boat even after sanding had darkened with age and even though it's not technically the proper color I just varnished over the raw wood and I love the natural color that resulted.

[evansjw44]

Looking at the pictures you posted I have to wonder if the bulkheads were stained and varnished or painted. The bulkheads in my Corinthian are painted as are the lockers et al. The window facias are stained and varnished as are the cupboard and cabin doors. I think Connies had stained and varnished bulkheads and the like but not necessarily all and maybe not after the early '60s. You should find the bulkheads and such made from a plywood with a thin "masonite" outer ply. That makes them paint nicely. Otherwise if they were to be stained and varnished the plywood would have a veneer of phillipine mahogany.

[BillDiCarlo]

Jim
well the bulkheads are def not masonite, so Im assuming this boat had stain and varnish at some point. There are alot of places where the paint is peeling off, and you can see the plywood underneath, and in some areas, the solid mahog.
I wasnt aware that some Challengers were actually painted over from Chris Craft, its funny you mention that, cause the cabin door is natural , I just assumed one of the previous owners just didnt paint it. Interesting, now you have me thinking, what I can tell you for sure its def not masonite anywhere where Im looking.

[evansjw44]

I'm not talking about the bulkhead et al being made of masonite. What I'm trying to tell you is that the outer ply of the plywood is a masonite (some say paper) material. Its a thin veneer. The rest of the plywood is ordinary fir. The outer veneer is what gives it a nice painable surface that doesn't show the characteristic plywood graining and it doesn't check.

CC used this stuff all over starting in about 1962. Cavelier and Sea Skiff hulls without the veneered ply would check on the plywoood grain and were hard to get a nice finish on. As for interior blukheads and the like they used mahogany or luan veneered plywood to get good finishability before they got the veneered ply. The masonite (some say it was paper) plywood is just cheaper than mahogany or luan.

Many owners didn't recognise the veneered plywood and sanded the masonite (paper) off the plywood and ended up with the hard to finish plain old fir.

[BillDiCarlo]

oh ok,
boy I hope thats not the case here, I dont think so,
I have a feeling it was just painted over, looks to be hardwood, on the trim pieces like the drawer fronts and moldings etc, the flat panels like walls etc, appear to be a good quality ply, like mahog,
is there any other way for me to tell?

[campjer]

The number of times I've seen beautiful hardwood painted white in our beloved Chris' makes me ill. I'm currently stripping all the interior of my DCFB - shaking my head the whole time. The same was true with my 32' Connie... I'm not sure what possesses people to paint over such beautiful wood - but I hope someday they'll stop.

My other pet peeve is using wood filler instead of wood bungs to fill up screw holes. But that's a rant for another day!

I use a product called Circa 1850 Furniture Stripper to remove all old paint. Does the job quite nicely, but does involve a lot of scraping.

[evansjw44]

The only way to really tell is to pull off some finish. Even boats with painted interiors like my Corinthian have a lot of stain and varnished peices. In the cabin I have stain and varnished cupboard doors and the head and forecabin door that are actually just mahogany plywood with an aluminum trim mopulding. The window trim is all mahogany stain and yarnished. The rest is often painted mahogany, like the galley and dinette structures, and the "paper covered" plywood bulkheads.

So were Challengers more like Connies with more stain and varnished interiors or closer to Sea Skiff and Caveliers? The Challenger was a market target between the low end Cavelier and the high end Constellation . A challenger was priced at the high end of the Sea Skiff and under the Connie. Like maybe a Pontiac?