Teak question

T

texasair

Member
I have removed all of the teak and teak grab rails from the 89 22 cruiser that I am putting back in seaworthy condition. I have removed the little trees growing on the grab rails. Next is a good sanding. I am inclined to put on 5 or 6 coats of marine polyurethane with the first coat to be thinned for penetration. The boat will spent a total of 2-3 months a year on the water and the rest of the time will be stored inside. Do the brats concur?...or should I just oil the wood?

What a project... This boat sat in an open yard for 6 years with perhaps the last 2 years in a nose down configuration with a foot of water in a closed cabin in the south Texas sun. Talk about mold, mildew and corrosion. I am stripping the entire interior to facilitate cleaning, some of the interior is rotted and will have to be replaced. I found these brackets to replace the OEM ones that had completely rusted out. (http://www.greenboatstuff.com/seadogstst90.html) The good news is that the hull seems to be sound and both motors have good compression. Hooked the 15 up to a gas can and it started on the first crank, no water pumping and shifting frozen, but I can fix that.
The 70 needed a new power pack to fire off, but all 3 carbs are gunked up and will need a rebuild and it will need a new water pump. Both motors have most of the paint flaked and corroded off, I will scrape sand and repaint only after I know they are both back in top running condition.
I am determined to have it back together and running for Lake Powell in Sept. I have decided on the new name.. "Bixby's Cub".

Tex and Sharon in Cypress, Texas where it is going to freeze tonight ...again. But my shop has a big heater.
 
Joe,Sea Wolf had a post some time back showing great results with marine varnish on his teak. I recently took his advice and applied 8 coats on my '85 Classic rails and got very good looking results. This is probably more work than keeping them oiled but to me was worth the extra effort.
Ron
 
I use Sikkens Ceto 23 Plus about 3 coats on new teak, than one coat every year or two. Twenty five years and counting still looks good.

The boat is under cover six months of the year. We do not have the hot Texas sun in this neck of the woods. Goodluck. C-Otter
 
We became somewhat teak experts with our Sundowner Tug that we sold a couple years back. We used Bristol Finish and it worked great. Easy to apply and long lasting - plus it makes the teak look great.

Teak looks nice, but "never say never" - I'll never have teak on a boat that I own - just too much maintenance.
 
There is no easy answer for teak. I just kept my teak railings on the C Dory 22 clean and oiled. I have tried every type of oil that was available in the 80's when we had a Garden Ketch which had several hundred sq feet of varnished teak. We finally concluded the premium spar varnish was the best. Later on the Cal 46 with more modest amounts of teak we tried Cetol and although it worked fine in the PNW, when we got to the tropics and in Florida, the UV and salt broke it down. We use Semco on some of the teak steps and that was OK--but didn't really look like teak. We stripped the Cal 46 down and varnished after the failure of Sikkens Cetol. I have friends who have used thinned epoxy and UV protective varnish over it--I have not used the Honey Teak or Bristol. Any product will require more work in the lower lattitudes due to more UV exposure.
 
When I finally broke down and did the hand rails on my CD-22 back about 2001, I took them down to bare wood and put on 8- 9 coats of polyurethane, thinning the first coat 15% or so.

They still look good today, though the finish is starting to shrink down somewhat, and the wood grain texture is beginning to show up as very slight dimpling.

To be fair, however, the boat has for the most part kept in a covered marina sheds or stored inside an RV barn. Moored in the open all year, 3, maybe 4 years before refinishing would be an expected lifespan.

I used a single part Varathane polyurethane, as using a two part system would have been wasteful because of the left-overs, which would have to be discarded.

This approach takes more time up front, but the extra coats are easy once the rails are off. The time saved by not re-finishing so often is considerable, since removing the rails takes almost as much time as refinishing them does.

From my experience, using and storing the boat as I do, every coat put on is one more year before you have to do it all over again!

Joe. , :teeth :thup
 
Hi Tex,

Sounds like mostly good news. We used Cetol light on the teak on our catboat. That held up well in the frozen northland, but needed touching up once a year or so down here (even when kept covered). I would think the polyurethane would be a better way to go for this climate; might be better to fill spots where the grain has opened.

Amazing that the 15 started. If you can get the 70 running, it would be a real bonus. Considering how long that boat sat, I figured both motors were likely toast.

Sorry to hear about your freeze tonight. Upper 40s the next two nights for us. In spite of all that boat sat through in the past 6 years, at least it didn't have to go through any freeze/thaw cycles.

Hope all goes well with the rest of the project. It will be a real treat to see that boat looking good again.

Best wishes,
Jim
 
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