Now I am sure that you are fed up with hearing that a paint or varnish job is only as good as what's underneath and that means that the prep work has to be up to snuff if the paint is not going to peel off in a second and a half. One mistake that I see made time and time again is sharp edges on woodwork and other surfaces that are about to be painted. Any edge tends to attract more wear than flat surfaces but sharp edges are painful if you bang your leg into them but they also do not hold up well by comparison with the rest of the job.
If you look at my rather poor sketch above you can see what I mean. The black line indicates a corner of a cabin trunk or what ever and the blue line is the surface of the paint film. Because paint cannot stick will to a sharp corner the paint is very thin and will wear through quickly.
Now compare this to the drawing below. Click on them to make them larger if you like.
The cabin top edge has now been rounded off slightly and the paint sticks much better to the substrate. In many cases the round over need not be huge, a little bit of time with some abrasive paper is often all that is needed but for items such as toe rails then a small round over bit in a router will turn the toes rail from the utilitarian to a thing of beauty.
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