It’s Winter: Time to Refinish Your Wooden Oars

It’s Winter: Time to Refinish Your Wooden Oars

We just got a couple feet of snow, and while my mind is very much thinking of summer, I do enjoy some mid-winter, boat-centric housekeeping at this time of year. Personally, I am a wooden oar guy (more on that choice later), and as such, I occasionally have to do some cosmetic work to make them last longer. As most of us know, bare wood and water don’t play very well together over extended periods of time.

If you’re the type of person who loves the way wooden oars row (duh) or loves the way they look, it’s remarkably easy to bring a beat-up pair back to life.

Ask twenty people how to do this, and you’ll likely get twenty different answers.

Here’s how I handle the process.

1. Set up to work outdoors for sanding. During all steps of this process latex gloves and a respirator are recommended. Use blue painter’s tape to wrap around and protect the handles, rope wraps or plastic wraps.

2. Get two or three sheets of both 60 and 120-grit sandpaper for each oar. You can use a variable speed orbital sander for the blades. Do not try this for the shaft, as it will cause flat spots. Simply hand sand the shaft with sandpaper. All you’re doing here is removing the protective coating or varnish from the wood. Sand along with the grain of the wood (as much as you can) until the oar appears dull.

3. If there are bare wood spots with no epoxy, or varnish left from either an accident or hard use, make sure to lightly coat said areas with a high-quality, two-part epoxy. I recommend two coats. This is definitely another wormhole with tons of opinions and is a multi-step process. It’s important to make sure you do this before varnishing. Google “oar repair” or “epoxy fix” for oars. Once this part is complete and everything is uniformly sanded, move on to step four. 

4. Blow the sawdust off with canned air or a compressor and clean with denatured alcohol.

5. Cover the rope wraps, handles or portions of the wooden oar you don't want stained with painter’s tape, if needed.

6. For the remainder of the process an indoor space that’s as clean as possible is needed. If the room is dusty or dirty, the varnish will show lots of dust particles once dry. Again, another wormhole–Google “prepping a room for varnish.” There are tons of tips and tricks to help.

7. Lay down plastic drop-cloths and support the oars at the very ends, so you can access as much wood as possible between coats. Conversely, if you can hang the oars vertically, that’s even better.

8. Buy something called a “tack cloth” and use it to wipe down the oars right before you apply varnish. It removes the fine particles of dust.

9. Make sure to use a varnish with UV protection built in–I like Interlux Schooner Varnish in gloss.

10. Always put on a respirator.

11. Make sure to dip the brush (many opinions here) with brushing liquid (a thinner) before using with varnish. This helps spread the varnish out and makes it easier to clean the brush after you’re done.

12. Apply varnish with brush strokes in one direction, taking note to remove any brush hairs and making sure that no drips are sagging on the underside of oars. Less is more here–don’t try to make it perfect. Varnish is self-leveling, and over-brushing will make it look bad. Wait 24 hours before adding a second layer. Before doing so, take 220 grit sandpaper and give a very light once-over. Blow off and clean again with denatured alcohol and tack cloth. Repeat until you’re satisfied with how the oar looks.

13. Wait 24 hours from your last coat and go fishing…