Brightwork or Dullwork?

Mulling the future of this boat I was facing a choice. Should I varnish, epoxy then varnish, or oil. Conscious that a great deal of dust had been created and more to come I wondered whether I could acheive the same level of finish that this boat originally had. Varnish might look nice when first applied, but as it dries even the tiniest grain of dust shows. I decided the oiled finish was too be the new look for this boat so before the final coat of paint could be applied, I was going to get at least the outer brightwork, well, maybe not so bright.

I was not too concerned about getting oil on the paintwork at this stage but it was becoming apparent that oil that contains stain was going to be a problem in the future when refreshing the oil after the final painting was completed. One of the advantages of oil as a finish is it makes maintenance easy. More oil can be applied at any time. There’s a huge range of oil products to choose from and I believe that that they all mostly perform the same way. I had a chance during this restoration to try out a few different oils without having to stop off any previous applications.