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RJ sanded into the night last night, and he and John cleaned every square inch of this 1952 Chris-Craft Riviera’s hull early this morning before they rolled and tipped the next coat of Pettit Hi-Build gloss varnish.
I hope you can see how RJ’s dedication to achieving flat is paying dividends. The sheen is more uniform and becoming brighter as well.
Another coat will be applied Friday, after which it is snow field time again on Monday, albeit with 400 grit dry paper.
We will update you again next week.

What do I mean when I say, “Making it snow is the key to delivering varnish that is to die for?”
Here is the answer. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the gloss and ability to reflect light varies directly with the degree to which the surface is flat. The difference between an inexpensive mirror and an expensive one can be seen by your reflection when you look into it. The silver plating on the expensive mirror is absolutely flat, so it accurately reflects light rays hitting it. The cheap mirror’s wavy reflection tells you that its surface is less than absolutely flat.
Here RJ appears to be destroying the glossy surface evident in the last Riviera project clip. It looks like snow, yes? And that is your goal at this stage of the varnishing process.
RJ sanded the surface lightly after three coats of Pettit Hi-Build gloss varnish had been applied. Now, following allowing the fifth coat to cure at 65 degr4ees and 60% humidity for 24 hours, it is time to go for flat. He is able to use the random orbit sander and 220 grit on the flat areas, of which there are precious few on the Riviera’s hull.
The rest, and especially on the corners and edges, and on the rolling gunwales and covering boards, he must sand by hand. using 2-1/2” wide strips of Sikit Gold Roll P220. That sea of discarded strips on the floor around the boat speaks volumes about how quickly the paper fills and thereby becomes useless.
Your goal, one that must be achieved without cutting through the varnish to wood, is a uniformly dull snow field, as RJ explains in detail here.
Coat number six will be rolled and tipped tomorrow morning, and we will share the results with the community in a follow-on video.

Thanks to the several of you who asked to see how we excise a bottom plank once all of the nails have been removed.
Here is a clip showing John and me, but mainly John using one of our Fein Multi-Masters and a smooth semi-circular blade to literally vibrate through the wood filler that the previous worker, now dubbed Bondo Man, insisted on paying into every seam.
This stuff is now akin to concrete. Our challenge is to cut through it without damaging the edges of the neighboring planks.
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Well, our hopes for repairing rather than replacing bottom planking was dashed as soon as we did a bit more exploration. Test extraction of several fasteners produced once-copper, now rusted ring-shank nails. And applying pressure externally while John observed from beneath the boat unearthed another problem. Much of the planking is no longer well-fastened to the ribs and/or framing.
Bottom line, we have begun releasing the most severely split planks, and will replace them. And we must refasten the bottom planking to the frame.
At the same time John began exploring the bottom transom board in hopes of determining where the Dutchmen patches must go. Well, there will be no Dutchmen patches as the wood filler also held moisture, and 90% of that transom plank is gone. Gone as well are large sections of a thin sheet of marine plywood that spanned the transom inboard of this plank.
It is not pretty, but hammer and chisel are the go-to tolls and technique for this job. John will continue excavating until he has removed this entire plank. The final result, fabricating and installing an entirely new plank will produce the correct result, but doing so is hugely time-consuming.
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