by GreenLake » Tue Jul 02, 2013 11:49 am
If instead of varnish you use linear PU, that would be fairly scratch resistant. It's held up well for my thwarts, for example. However, I've managed to rub through both the expoxy coating and the LPU under my tiller. The fault was an incorrectly located tiller stop that allowed the tiller to come down far enough to rub, when I was steering with a "heavy hand".
I simply raised the stop and retouched, but one thing that works is to use a strip of fiberglass cloth. It will become transparent, and you won't see it's there, but if somethings chafing, it will protect the wood long enough for you to be able to take care of the problem.
Now, K.C. has the separate issue of hiding ugly repairs. If they were localized and centered under the tiller, I would have suggested a strip of stainless steel as a rub guard. But over the length? I'm as curious what K.C. ended up with as all of you.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~