Lovely job!

Or at least, it will be. I drove across to Brico Depot at Trelissac to find something to coat or paint the Weedhopper’s prop with. I decided in the end to do a proper job by rubbing it all down as I did 56NE’s, but without stripping the old coating off this time, to get a totally uniform finish.

After searching around I came across a small area hidden away among all the ‘environmentally friendly’, water-based varnishes that quite frankly are really only good for lightly used indoor surfaces, containing a range of proper white spirit based products branded Xylophene Color. These looked promising and up on the top shelf I spotted ‘Vernis Extérieur Marin’, a very high resistance, uncoloured, high gloss marine varnish.

It’s described as having ‘reinforced impermeability’ and protection against UV bleaching so I thought it was worth buying and giving it a go. And after just the first coat, I’m not at all disappointed.

First I gave the whole prop a rub over with an abrasive sponge to give it a uniform unglossy surface and after making sure that I’d cleaned all of the dust off, applied the first coat of this varnish. The result is stunning! It’s given a fantastic, high gloss finish with absolutely no brush marks, so in most respects, it resembles what was the prop’s original finish. And that I’m extremely delighted with.

I’m going to give it a second coat before masking off the tips for painting, as I did with 56NE’s prop, and then I’ll probably apply two more so the prop will end up with a thick, highly protective, high gloss finish.

The only problem is that you have to leave 12 hours between coats and a further 24 hours for it to be fully cured, so the whole job is going to take two or three days. But I think that the final result will be well worth waiting for 😉