The Blandford Rebuild - Sanding, sanding & more sanding...

I always knew there was going to be a bit of elbow grease involved with this restoration process, most notably the sanding down. The plan is to sand the boat down with 60grit sandpaper before doing the whole thing over again with a finer grain – this should hopefully result in a super glossy finish once we start the varnishing process.

I had hoped that I could get most of the sanding done over the course of a weekend or two, but after this last weekend’s attempt I’m not so sure anymore. My dad and I, each armed with an electric sander, started on the foredeck on Friday afternoon and managed to complete it in about 2 hours as there was a considerable build-up of old varnish laid down over the years.

Foredeck sanded (rough grain)

Saturday morning saw the completion of the aft deck which was thankfully a bit quicker than the foredeck. The picture below shows a nice "before and after" comparison. 

Aft deck - before and after

Sunday we tackled the inside, getting about a quarter of the way through before calling it a day. There are all kinds of odd angles, nooks & crannies making it pretty difficult to enjoy any sort of head-way with the electric sanders.  

I’m hoping that if I can squeeze in a couple of hours after work this week and spend some time this weekend, we should get done with the first pass. Hopefully, the second bout of sanding with the finer grain should be MUCH quicker.

Wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, wooden sailing boat, wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford.wooden sailing dinghy, Percy Blandford, timber boat, wood boat, wood dinghy, how to build a boat, how to build a wooden boat, how to fix a wooden boat, sailing dinghy, sail, row boat, classic wooden boat, classic wooden sailing