Stripping old finish is the only part of the restoration process that I truly hate. It’s nasty, messy, toxic, and takes a lot of time and work. At least the mid section of the Otca is all new wood so I only have to strip the ends but then there’s the Thompson waiting for me, the entire boat.
Sometimes the process of removing old finish reveals defects that weren’t obvious under all that old patina. In this case one plank had several fractures and I missed a rib that was badly cracked. The rib really bothered me but it lays under the stem and I really didn’t want to rip open the bow to replace it. Since the break happened to be in line with the bad plank I removed the plank, routed and epoxied a backside spline into the bad rib, and installed the new plank.
