I recently resurrected an old thread that provided a quick method to finger coat old Fenwicks with spar varnish to restore their luster form year's past. The original thread can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18487I recently applied Whirlpool's quick and simple method to two venerable Fennies - a D serial FF79 and a J serial FF70. Start to finish the process took about 15 minutes to clean, dry, coat, and tell the kids three times they weren't allowed to open the basement door by the furnace until the following day (that door is what I leaned the rods against to cure overnight - for others with teens, yes . . . I know a 3 time warning is 4 times less than what's usually required. It was getting late, I accepted the risk, and moved on
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Here's a few before pix of the 79 - and a few after pix of both rods - I didn't take any pix of the 70 but the condition was about the same: no major issues - a few scratches but all in all, sound rods in good condition with some grunge and minor scuffing from use.
I was amazed by how much the rod's appearances shined through. They both looked like seldom-used rods after coating.
A couple before pix of the 79 (including the door):
A couple of after pix of both rods (the 70 is closest to the bench edge; the 79 is closest to my rod building setup):
The original thread I ref'd above tells you everything you need to know, really but in the interest of contributing something to the conversation, I'll add two minor points:
For cleaning I opted to stay away from steel wool all together and used a small section of a blue scotch brite pad and regular dish soap & warm water. That cleaned up the rods quite nicely.
If you bought a quart of spar specifically to perform Fenwick refreshes like the ones we're discussing, that quart will probably last you thru 10,000 or more rods - that's how little of the stuff you need to complete a refresh like this. I used Rustoleum Spar for these because that's what I had on the shelf.