Ron didn't want to take the slide pieces off of the boat for me to work on, and I didn't want to damage the gel coat on the boat with the Armor All EZ Deck Wash (I am sure it wouldn't be good for the gel coat).  So I was just going to leave it at fixing the two teak access panels.

Until Ron took the first of the finished panels out there.  He came in with the two short slide pieces and said "You made a clean spot."  I asked him what he meant, and he ask me to please do the rest of the bright work, because the cleaned and varnished pieces looked too good to be with the other pieces.

Makes me feel like I actually accomplished something, for once...

Since I don't have the fiberglass kit yet (everyone keeps forgetting to buy it), I decided to work over the bright work--which in our case, looks more like the dull work...

I have seen lots of expensive products on the market for fixing the gray on wood.  I seriously thought of buying them, but then I found Armor All E-Z Deck Wash at Walmart.  The label said it is an exterior wood restorer; I figured for about $4 a gallon, it might be worth it to try.

Since there are two pieces of wood that are lifted out for the cabin, I brought both  in.  On one side, toward the interior, they still showed their original colors, though they also displayed obvious neglect.  Below are the series of pictures I took with some commentary below some of them.

The cleaned plank on the left begins to lose its gray color.

The cleaned plank looks very pale in this picture from the chemicals in the deck wash.

This is the planks after the left was sanded.

This is after I rubbed the wood with a little bit of gunstock oil.  Gunstock oil really brings out the beauty in old wood.

This picture is a close up of the difference between the restored plank and the gray plank.

On the right is the inner unSun bleached side compared to the freshly stained and varnished plank on the left.  The second plank (on the right) is about to get worked over too.

The wood now looks wonderful, as you can see in the above picture.  It has a deep red glow, and the glossy varnish looks great.  Everything I purchased to get it in this condition cost less than $20, and I definitely have enough to finish all the rest of the bright work (wood) on the boat.  I have seen ads on an outdoor channel for the same kind of repair cost four times that.

I hope Ron is happy with this; it is part of his Father's Day gift.

Kelly

NOTICE: Edited.  I noticed a few errors after finally sleeping for three hours in the last 48, but the basic post has not changed.

Dr. Onorato said Ron's legs looked like he had been in a horror movie.  They do look pretty bad; below is a picture of one of the lessor injuries.  I took a picture of it instead of the bad injuries because those are covered in bandages.  This one measures about 4" x 3", and in places, all layers of the skin have been scraped off to the muscle beneath.

Scrape injury, left leg

This injury is below the knee about six inches.  The picture would be better, but this is the first time I have tried my new camera.

Again, as I said, this is one of the minor injuries.