interior timber type

[Goboatingnow]

Im trying to find a close match to the timber used in my 2004 Bavaria 36 , is it teak or something else ?

thanks

[Yngmar]

Sapele with satin varnish.

[filban]

Anyone know of any proprietary available sapele stain and filler?

[symphony2]

Not sure what you mean by filler. Colron make wood dyes and two shades, deep mahogany and rosewood (or a combination of the two) can be used to blend in with Bavaria sapele. Which you use depends on the base wood you are trying to match, so experimentation is needed. I have used this on both ply and solid mahogany, although with ply you don't get the stripes. However, ply with 1mm sapele face veneer on one side is available in 4,5 and 6mm from Robbins Timber in Bristol. I used some to make a shoe locker in the forecabin of my 37 and it was a good match with the original.

[filban]

re filler I need to fill up some small screw holes left by the previous owner ; you can sometimes buy wood filler in different wood colours

there are a couple of small areas at skirting level that will need sanding then staining to match the sapele


I am experimenting with different stains but I have never seen sapele stain ; light mahogany seems closest but i will have a look at rosewood

[symphony2]

Sapele is a mahogany type wood with the distinction of the stripes in the grain. The basic grain colour varies enormously in this type of wood, hence the need to experiment with different shades to get a good match. Fillers are difficult to match as they tend not to take dyes once they are cured, so again you could try colouring it yourself before you use it. I have found making filler out of epoxy with West microballoons (which are brown), colloidial silica (which is white), and fairing filler (which is beige) in varying proportions can be effective, but it is a lot of work. Another approach with holes is to drill them out and then plug with a pellet from a matching piece of solid wood. Difficult to get a good match in ply, but usually works with solid wood trim. Luckily I have a good stock of bits of hardwood, mostly mahogany and teak that I have collected over the years, and I have even used sawdust to colour epoxy to make matching filler!

[Salty]

.
.......Another approach with holes is to drill them out and then plug with a pellet from a matching piece of solid wood. .....

That was pretty much the method I used after injecting insulating foam into the hollow area surrounding the inset refrigerator on my B36(2002). The refrigerator cool-box was set into the galley worktop and had a top opening lid. It never used to keep its cool very well until the insulating foam was added, but the first problem had been how to get the foam into the area around the box because it was literally boxed in. So after a lot of consideration I carefully drilled a lot holes suitably spaced apart through the vertical woodwork surrounding the fridge compartment.
Having injected the foam, the next problem was to fill the holes, and for this I chose some suitably sized hard wood dowelling from the local DIY shop. An alternative to that would be to buy the kind of wood dowelling used by flat pack furniture makers. The dowelling was cut into short lengths sufficient to fill the holes, but only just long enough. These short lengths of dowell were then carefully hammered into place with a hammer, but with an additional flat piece of wood between the end of the dowell and the hammer so as not to leave any hammer marks on the surrounding plywood surface.

If you want you could add some wood glue into the holes, but I wasn’t convinced it would serve much purpose. Some of the dowell ends were not entirely flush after knocking them into place, so some careful sanding was needed using a small oscillating multifunction tool with a sanding pad attached.

Finally I used some coloured Ronseal in a satin finish to match the ends of the dowell to the surround woodwork colour, and that was it, five minute job done, and it only took a few days to do it !!

[Goboatingnow]

Thanks.

[symphony2]

I had forgotten about the mahogany tinted Ronseal which I have used successfully in other applications, particularly on pine shelves and a chest of drawers to blend in with other mahogany stained furniture.

If you are going to use plugs regularly it is worth investing in a plug cutter so that you can cut crossgrain plugs from matching timber. You need a pillar drill to cut the plugs but the end result is very neat. I am looking at the plugs used to cover the screws used to fasten the capping pieces to my study worktop. Cut out of the same wood as the capping and with the grain going the same way they are almost invisible.

[Salty]

If you are using Ronseal, say in a Mahogany colour to match the colour of the existing furniture, and you have a large area to cover, you need to work quickly in order that the wet edge of the Ronseal doesn’t dry while you are applying the liquid. The problem is that any slight overcoating over an edge in the painted area that has dried off, tends to darken the colour quite noticeably. A useful property with Ronseal is that not only can you use water to clean your brush, but you can also thin the liquid with water and this extends the drying time such that while you are coating a large area, the bits further away from you where perhaps you started, don’t  start drying off before you get back there. Adding water to the liquid also tends to lighten the shade such that it helps when trying to coat an area that is perhaps slightly lighter in colour than the Ronseal you have in a pot on your shelf, and particularly where some evaporation during previous use has occurred.