boat decking teak

Hello,

can anyone tell me what and how to treat teak for boat decking, i need to know if you wax it or lacquer it or if there is a special method for making the teak seaworthy. any help would be greatly welcomed. aaarrrrrrgggghhhh

 

For seaworhty, you wash it with sea water and scrub it. The rest is for fancy finishes that give you a slippery surface.

 

Teak Decking

deraaata,

You need to do nothing at all.
If you are fitting a new teak deck then just leave it.
Teak is an 'oily' wood and left untreated is the classic quality non-slip weather deck covering.
A light scrubbing regularly is all it needs (never, ever pressure wash it!)

Hope this helps,
Graham Westbrook
Naval Architect
www.westbrookmarine.co.uk

 

And to add: do NOT scrub it with the fibre! You scrub out the softer parts after a while. Use sort of scotchbritt and work gentle, do´nt use a hard brush.
Regards
Richard

 

The best thing about teak is that it needs nothing at all.

If you really must clean it at all, simply use something flat and work it across the grain not with it. Many teak decks are ruined by scrubbing with a brush or scotchbright with the grain. This lifts all the soft wood out from between the hard ridges and leaves a bumpy deck.

Traditionally, teak decks were stoned with hard pumice and flat as a sheet of glass.

 

That translation was better, no doubt!

 

Sorry, I didn't see your post before posting mine. I didn't mean to repeat.

 

I do´nt mind, and I always mean what I say: your description was better.
Regards
Richard

 

Now we are getting interesting - a flat pumice? I didn't know that! In the past, I've applied too much teak and flat-sanded as the wear showed. The pumice, I like. There will probably be less wear... or, at least, it will look better a higher percentage of the time. Where can I get chunk? On a sportfishing boat, how does one best get blood/slime off before someone slips? Just large quantities of water? In the past, I've used a hard-mounted scotchbrite pad and water but it seems to eat the soft grain too much.

 

Thats it, you always have to work across the grain and gentle. Plenty of seawater is usually sufficient to clean a deck. For the blood prob. I dunno, never slaughtered one aboard (though sometimes was close to).
On German and English tallships just a brick was the tool of choice.
Regards
Richard

 

I use Pumice because it cuts fast and leaves a nice flat surface, go across the grain with a lot of water as lube. You can cut a lot of wood off so be careful. You'll also want to wear leather gloves or use a rag as the pumice will cut into your hands. I bought my chunk at a swimming pool supply store where I think they sold it for grinding out bumps in the bottom of pools.

Regarding fish slime/guts/blood, I find simple dish washing soap does fine, although it will pull a lot of the natural teak oil off the deck so don't use much. If you're really fussy, and one of my X-Skippers was, you can bleach the wood with mild bleach to get the color uniform but that's really hard on the wood. Bleach is what's in these Teak Bright products. Although most use Oxycolic (I'm not spelling it right) acid rather than chlorine.

B

 

Oxalic. Sorry, I should have been more specific - While fishing, people on deck, fish, blood, slime, etc.. Soap, acid, bleach are out of the question. I'll get a stone. "Across the grain" I can do. "Gentle" is sometimes a problem!

 

With a big stone Mark you can even go with the grain. The harder ridges will prevent going to deep in the softer parts. Soap is sometimes a must unfortunately, but one should not use acids, solvents etc. Fortunately a slaughterhouse is a greasy place, so, using some green soap will not degrease the wood too much (If). But the sun and rain are doing it anyway, no matter what you do, after some years there is no oil left in the wood. A "Benar Oil" treatment before winterizing will bring some elasticity and rot resistance back into the fibre (between the fibre actually).

Regards
Richard

 

thanks