Expertise needed on stripping/refinishing teak

[EngNate]

I am stripping off the Cetol on my teak. It didn’t last 2 seasons in Michigan where the boat is inside for 6 months out of the year. I did take it down to bare wood before I started. Did it exactly per the directions. I am going with paint. Tired of messing with finishing teak. We really like the look of the white painted rails so we are stripping the toe rails this winter.

Yup.. I just did that with my cabin bulkhead, the only exterior teak finish on the boat. It looks good and I'm glad I did it.

As mentioned elsewhere, get thick old finish off with a scraper - 1-1.5" putty knife, new one with a nice straight square edge, short strokes right behind, practically under, the heat gun, hold flat, careful with the corners of the blade. You need to rotate scrapers so they can cool, and use gloves - if the blade isn't getting too hot to touch you aren't getting close enough to the heat. Put some pressure on the mid point of the blade so it curves a little meeting the wood - that's why you need to let it cool, you have to put a bit of pressure on the metal blade.

After stripping and a cursory sanding I applied a penetrating epoxy sealer (S1 from System Three) and sanded smooth after a full cure, then applied another coat and finished that with a medium Scotch-Brite stripping pad. I'm going to keep the frame around the doorway natural so this is all it has so far and it looks good as is with zero gloss.

I finished the rest with Brightside, white with about 8% Largo Blue, the boat's secondary color, applied with a thin microfiber roller (vacuum any loose fibers off first). I used 216 Thinner at 12-15%, much more than specified in the datasheet, four very thin coats the final 2 with 1:1 Flattening Agent. I applied successive coats without any prep, at intervals of about half the specified sanding time, 2-3x the specified touch dry time. In early summer up here that worked out well with two late morning and two early afternoon coats. It looks good, a satin finish easy on the eyes.

I'm sure it's been posted here before but worth repeating - for a good read on applying polyurethane paints with a roller search up "Rolling Perfection". It's 3 bucks I think for the download and well worth it if you don't already know the method.