Elsie N is a "Baby Badger", 30ft versus 34Ft. LOA. Her interior is correspondingly smaller but she is definitely related to Badger in terms of decor and I love her. The builder has changed the ratio of wood to white in the white direction. I will increase that a bit too, toward the white. But it won't be blank. Tam decorated with some lovely art work here and there which gave it that  personalized, "cosy country cottage" look Annie mentioned. His are gone but I'm putting in my own. I discovered that i could have, say, a small print mounted on plaque material, with a tapered black edge. They have a plastic finish, easy to keep clean. Without frames, they don't over fill the space the way a normally framed picture would in such a confined space. I attach them with purpose made Velcro pads that hold like the devil. It's a lot of fun. You quickly learn what "too much" means and off they come. I particularly like West Coast (British Columbia) native art. 

Thanks Annie, 

It's nice to have the moral support of a fellow brightwork addict.  It may take longer to apply the finish, require more exacting woodwork, be less durable and harder to repair than a painted finish....., but I find sitting in a boat surrounded by woodgrain akin to escaping to the forest, it's good for the soul. 

I'm going to try some of the UV rated epoxy and see how it goes.  It may be too good to be true, but it is worth a try.  I'll try to remember to post my success or failure here.

I feel like we (thank goodness I have a spouse who varnishes) haven't hit our finish-work stride in this project.  Things I thought I'd mastered in the past, but skills I haven't used for years seem to be slow coming back.  We're still regularly fighting with sags and drips in our epoxy coats.  At first I thought it was due to switching resin systems (we switched from West to System Three to avoid amine blush), but eventually figured out the water-based stain I was using on the cabin sole was at least partly responsible for the erratic behaviour of the epoxy there.  With so much woodwork to come this winter, we really need to optimise our finishing regimen.

I've never tried a roller with varnish, but it seems like a good idea and any increase in speed is welcome.  I've used rollers with epoxy in the past, but I always have a bit of guilt when you look at the pile of trash generated that way.  I think re-using the roller is great.  Can I ask how you're applying your epoxy coats?

Thanks David, 

I agree that I would prefer just oil to just varnish, but I found the epoxy-varnish hybrid worked very well to make refinishing much easier (epoxy stays intact and just retouch varnish) and much more durable than just oil.

I'm planning on oiling the cedar slats that will line the ceiling and roof of the boat, but for the work surfaces I prefer something that is completely watertight.  We may be talking across purposes, for clarity the epoxy used in the flow coat for the counters is very thick and sets slowly, you can do one thick pour if the surface is level or multiple thin pours if the surface cannot be kept level.  The final thickness on the epoxy is somewhere between 1/8" (3mm) to 1/4" (6mm) depending on what you want.  One of the requests from my spouse, was that where we have fiddled surfaces that they be made such that debris can't get stuck in the edges/corners.

Although I'm satisfied with how the counters are going, I'm still not sure what to do with the remaining 90% of the woodwork on the boat.  If the UV inhibited epoxy worked, it would make our woodwork finishing path much quicker.  Also, we are only months away from the weather here in Vancouver  turning to the point where we have to start finishing the boats woodwork inside our house.  I'd rather not live with the oil-based varnish and its solvents in the house all winter.

I suppose just using oil everywhere would speed things up as well.  Our aluminum boat is pretty dry, maybe we could get away without epoxy sealing all the wood??  I do love the feel of oiled wood.

As so many Junkies have finished their own boats, I'm hoping to tap into the collective wisdom of interior finishing.  My own build is at the stage now where we are finishing a lot of interior wood.  I'm one of those unfortunate souls that has a weakness for a bright finish.  In the past, we've used two coats of epoxy followed by three coats of one-part oil-based varnish to very good effect.  The epoxy is great for stabilizing and sealing the wood, while the varnish gives the epoxy UV protection.  However, this process is slow and we have a lot of wood to finish.  My limited experience with two-part varnishes alone has been less than stellar.  They don't seem to stabilize the wood the way epoxy does.  I've only used them on exterior wood, but there they seem to become more harsh with age rather than mellowing like one-part varnish.  

On our countertops, I'm using a thick flow coat of epoxy (UVPoxy from Ecopoxy) to create a relatively lightweight surface that is perfectly sealed with the fiddles.  I'm pleased with the early results, but we'll have to see how it ages.  I'm wondering if anyone has any experience using an epoxy in place of two part varnish?  The same company that makes the countertop flow coat I used makes another product (Ecopoxy Resin and Clear hardener) that looks like it would be ideal for coating wood and it is supposedly UV stable.  I'm not adverse to trying something new, but normally I like to try some smaller pieces and let them age to see how things go.  Has anyone tried something similar to this or have something that they think is a better alternative to finishing interior brightwork quickly, but in a durable way?