Yes
Definitely put a couple more coats of oil now. It wouldn’t hurt to protect the royalex because you will get a bit of oil on the hull when you do the bottom side of the gunwales, but it’s probably more a question of personal preference than absolute necessity.
taking the gunwhales off to oil behind?
if the boat is otherwise stored indoors and only gets wet when out paddling, does one need to remove the rails and do it on the inside?
wow that sounds like a lot of work. so far my rails are perfect and the boat is 5 years old. always stored in the garage, but it does see a fair amount of use in the warm months, with lots of day outings and the occasional week or so.
Picky Picky…OK use a 3M pad
But I’ve used 00 steel wool on my boats and paddles for years and…none have rusted out. LOL But I should say that steel wool, 3M pads and rags that are left around the shop could spontaneous cumbust when you least expect it.
And I don’t know what others are paying for Watco teak but it’s only 7 dollars a quart at my local lumber yard, for most people a quart will last for years.
Minute details
Lot’s of good responses here! You could probably just loosen the gunwhale screws and get some oil behind them with a cotton swab. If you don’t get it on there, water will find it’s way in.
By the way, I’m still trimming my canoe up and cut some extra gunwhale off the bow to mount the decks. When I looked at the cut, I was amazed to see that the oil had soaked most of the way to the core within 2 days.