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I recently purchased all new teak for my 1988 Montauk. After what appears to be prolonged exposure to water (heavy rain and pooling in my boat cover), the finish has become cloudy in spots. The appearance is akin to a wood floor that has been exposed to water. Unfortunately, dry air does not appear to make it go away. Specialty Marine said to use a "car compound on a buffer with a slow speed. Any other suggestions?

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Please include what the finish is. The conditions at my house had mildew (maybe fogging) under tung oil bases sealants. My linseed oil based wood finish had mildew but easily corrected with a chlorine based cleanser. The tung oil based had to be completely stripped. A lot of labor but the manufacturer (Seafin) explained porous. I do not use shellac but hopefully Finnegan will chime in. The cloudiness is moisture and my guess with shellac is you have to get to bare wood. I have had products for over layments (not with marine use on teak) that once activated with a stripper in dry conditions would release the cloudiness. Again, please identify which products were used.

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I have no experience with the "varnish" finish Specialty uses on their wood, an do not know what it is specifically.

But I can say that the Z-Spar Flagship marine grade varnish that i use, anywhere from 10 to 12 coats, does not exhibit what you describe at all. Even after years of water exposure, no spotting at all.

My recommendation would be to improve the quality of the varnish, and see if that eliminates the problem. On a test component that is cloudy, sand the surface well with #220, and see if the cloudiness goes away. Then apply about 6 coats of Flagship, and see if it looks proper. If that fixes the problem, do it all.

If the above process does not solve the problem, your only option is to strip off the Specialty finish, stain with Zar #120 teak stain, and re-varnish many coats with a good marine product.

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Finnegan good points for fixing the problem but all varnishes can exhibit that problem and mostly due to temperature and dew point at time of application. The moisture soaked up in the coating will make it look cloudy after completely drying and the only way to get rid of it is to re-prep and coat as you mentioned.

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You are dealing with humidity. Let the varnish dry out before trying to do anything.

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This is a situation where the varnish has cured. It will not dry any more, nor will the discoloration go away, buffing will not help. The only fix is to strip all finish to bare wood and re coat. There is a chance that the problem has not migrated into all of the layers of finish, and sanding off the top coat will do the trick.

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Like Byron and I said cured or not water was involved during the original application and depending which coat you might be able to sand of that coat otherwise it is like Walter said. When bringing it down to the bare wood make sure the wood is dry or and/or use a CPES as a primer before final varnish coats application.

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A cloudy finish is moisture, and if you have this problem on a cured finish that means the finish is inferior, unless you want to keep your boat in your living room.

Good news/bad news, in reverse order. The finish is crap and needs to be removed. Because it is a crap finish it shouldn't be too much trouble to remove it.