Teak Deck Maintenance

[siestakey]

My teak deck cleans up nice but if I am gone for 2 weeks the grain gets dark it cleans easy with teak cleaner

this last time I was gone 5 weeks the teak still look conditioned but the black was very hard to remove teak cleaner did not do the job

any suggestions

 

[siestakey]

pic

forgot the pic after cleaning

I need a pic of dirty next time maybe

 

[caltexflanc]

I take it you want it to look like that all the time and not natural silver grey?

 

[Larry M]

We use Cascade Liquid Dishwashing Detergent with a white 3-M Scotch pad. There seems to be something in the soap that helps really clean the decks and the Cascade and the Scotch pad aren't to aggressive. Twice a year we use Semco Teak Sealer after cleaning.

 

[Donsan]

this last time I was gone 5 weeks the teak still look conditioned but the black was very hard to remove teak cleaner did not do the job

any suggestions

My suspicion is the black stuff is ordinary Florida mildew. The normal treatment on most surfaces is bleach or a bleach water solution but that isn't something you want to put on teak decks.

 

[siestakey]

Caltex yes mainly because a large area is so shaded it will not grey

I was pretty sure the black was mold

Larry I will have to try that in 2 weeks when I get back

 

[Pack Mule]

The 2 part cleaner from Semco works pretty good also .

 

[siestakey]

Thanks Pack going to have this boat a long time I hope so I will try several things including this

I used to make extra money at the St. Pete Yacht club and muni marina as a teenager sanding and cleaning teak

there was a old boat at the end of the muni ( I think used to be Earl Flinns may of been a urban legand)

The guy that owned it made a mix that cleaned it so well was a powder and a liquid and water was about 35 years ago wonder what it was

 

[Xsbank]

Mild dish soap and a soft bristle brush used across the grain, salt water. You will cut your deck's life in half with abrasives and aggressive cleaners. The soft wood between the grain is easily removed then you have to sand it to be smooth. You then take off valuable wood. Teak oxidizes to a nice grey colour and getting the colour back to brown means you are losing wood. When your first paper-thin bungs start falling out then you need to start remediating the deck, then you find out it's too thin then you pay big boat dollars to remove or replace.

If you want it to stay brown you either sand it regularly, use an aggressive cleaner or varnish it. Varnish will fail eventually then you need to sand...

 

[Capt.Bill11]

Thanks Pack going to have this boat a long time I hope so I will try several things including this

I used to make extra money at the St. Pete Yacht club and muni marina as a teenager sanding and cleaning teak

there was a old boat at the end of the muni ( I think used to be Earl Flinns may of been a urban legand)

The guy that owned it made a mix that cleaned it so well was a powder and a liquid and water was about 35 years ago wonder what it was

You only want to use a two part cleaner once or maybe twice a year. It's very hard on the wood. I have a home made recipe for two part cleaner that work just as well as the over priced commercial cleaner and cost about 1 tenth or less of the price of the commercial products to mix up. I'll post it when I'm back to my computer.

To clean teak on a regular basis use Cascade or powdered Tide with bleach in it and a doodle bug pad. Scrub across the grain of the wood. You can also beach the wood out using oxalic acid crystals.

 

[siestakey]

Capt Bill

Thanks neighbor!

 

[Giggitoni]

If you don't like gray....you should consider another deck material.

 

[Dawdler]

Someone could make a fortune inventing a synthetic teak that had all of the great qualities of the real thing yet stayed that beautiful gold color that is so attractive. Any brilliant scientists out there?

 

[siestakey]

Dawdler

yes sure could

 

[Donsan]

Someone could make a fortune inventing a synthetic teak that had all of the great qualities of the real thing yet stayed that beautiful gold color that is so attractive. Any brilliant scientists out there?

There is something called Plasteak:

Teak Boat Flooring, Holly Boat Flooring, Maple Boat Flooring | PlasTEAK Inc.

 

[caltexflanc]

And Seadek:

Teak Swim Platform Pads – SeaDek Marine Products

And, the best I've seen:

MarQuipt ... A Reputation for Quality, Service, and Reliability

I'm from the school that all a teak deck needs is a very soft brush and clean salt water. For the occasional diesel or other stain, maybe a little very diluted sudsy ammonia. About every 3 years, Ann liked to have them heavy cleaned, we used Snappy Teak which seemed to be among the least corrosive according to various detailers and teak deck guys. Others swore by Semco's "cleaner" and others still by those from Teak Decking Systems (who hands down has the best caulk)

 

[Capt.Bill11]

+1 on cleaning teak with salt water. Rinsing it with salt water after and letting the salt water evaporate dry is even better.

 

[Andy G]

Dawdler

yes sure could

Check the archives ,there are some good threads on this subject

 

[Marin]

Teak cleaner/restorer is a great way to shorten the life of a teak deck. There is only one way to get a teak deck back to brown from silver-gray, and that is to remove the weathered wood cells. You can do it with sandpaper or you can do it with the teak cleaners/restorers. The end result is the same.

Sandpaper removes the wood mechanicaly, teak cleaners/restorers remove the wood chemically. Either way, wood goes away and you cannot get it back. The more you use teak cleaner/restorer, the faster the deck goes away. If you insist on using a teak cleaner/restorer, every time you apply it imagine yourself giving the deck a sanding because that is exactly what you're doing.

If one is interested in maximizing the longevity of a teak deck, there are only two things that have to be done. One, learn to love silver-gray. Two, keep it clean by regular washings with a string mop or sponge and saltwater with a soap like Lemon Joy that makes good suds in cold water.

That's it. One to three times a year depending on how dirty the environment is, it's a good idea to give the deck a bit of a light scrubbing with a doodle bug and the salt water/Joy mixture to get out deeper dirt.

So.... never use sandpaper, never use teak cleaners/restorers, never use a power washer, and try to never wash or scrub the deck with the grain. Always go across the grain unless deck hardware prevents this.

Our boat still has its original teak deck, which is now 42 years old. Previous owners over-sanded it, but it's still serviceable. Given the expense of replacing a teak deck, and the fact that we don't like fiberglass deck surfaces, we are naturally interested in making our deck last as long as we possible can.

To that end, over the last 16 years we have learned a hell of a lot about teak decks, their care and feeding, how to repair and replace deck seams, what deck seam material is the best, the whole nine yards.

Bottom line is keep the seams in the proper condition, keep the deck screws covered with teak plugs properly seated and glued, keep the deck clean, and don't do anything that can cause wood cells to go away.

 

[Capt.Bill11]

Home made 2 part teak cleaner.

Not to be use to clean your teak on a regular basis. Just like commercial 2 part teak cleaners this is a very strong cleaner that should only be use when the teak is very, very dirty and nothing else less caustic will work. It can of course be used to clean and bleach teak before varnishing if need be.



Here's the formula:

Part 1 or A

To 3 - 5 gallons of water add 1 cup TSP powder and 1 cup ammonia, mix well.

Use as you would the commercial part 1 or A.
Keep wet and do not rinse off after scrubbing.

Part 2 or B

To 3-5 gallons of water add 2-3 cups muratic acid. Apply as you would the commercial part 2 or B.

As you genitally scrub the part 2 around be sure you get it into all the areas covered with the part 1 so it can react with the part 1 and cause the teak to go blond. Keep all surfaces wet while doing this. Try to keep it off of anodized aluminum and painted surfaces that are not painted with a 2 part ploy paint just as you should with the commercial 2 part products. And rinse everything very, very well after all the teak goes blond.

Eye, hand and feet protection should be worn just as with the commercial products.

You can make the 2 parts as strong or as weak as you like. And the cost is 10% or less than the cost of the commercial products.

 

[caltexflanc]

As you genitally scrub the part 2 around be sure you get it into all the areas covered with the part 1 so it can react with the part 1 and cause the teak to go blond

Wow, talk about needing protection!

 

[Marin]

BTW, the reason to clean a teak deck with salt water is not because teak likes salt water. The reason to use salt water is if there are any bad seams, missing plugs, or whatever that can let water get down under the teak planking. From there it can migrate down past the deck screws into the wood core of the subdeck. Even most so-called fiberglass subdecks have a wood core, and salt water is less conducive to the promotion of dry rot than fresh water.

That's the only reason to use salt water. If you have a newer boat that has glued-down teack deck planks and no screws penetrating the subdeck, there is no real advantage to using salt water because if water should get down under the teak, it can't migrate down into the subdeck. Except perhaps down past deck hardware fastenings.

 

[Capt.Bill11]

Sandpaper removes the wood mechanicaly, teak cleaners/restorers remove the wood chemically. Either way, wood goes away and you cannot get it back. The more you use teak cleaner/restorer, the faster the deck goes away. If you insist on using a teak cleaner/restorer, every time you apply it imagine yourself giving the deck a sanding because that is exactly what you're doing.

Actually 2 part cleaner is worse than sanding. In that it eats away the pith even more than the harder wood fibers leaving the deck with a grooved surface that traps dirt, grime and promotes the growth of mold. Where as sanding knocks them both down and produces a smooth even surface.

Like it or not, at some point the deck is going to need to be sanded. And in fact if the deck has been properly built and installed it can be sanded at least a couple of times in it's life with no ill effects.

 

[Capt.Bill11]

BTW, the reason to clean a teak deck with salt water is not because teak likes salt water. The reason to use salt water is if there are any bad seams, missing plugs, or whatever that can let water get down under the teak planking. From there it can migrate down past the deck screws into the wood core of the subdeck. Even most so-called fiberglass subdecks have a wood core, and salt water is less conducive to the promotion of dry rot than fresh water.

That's the only reason to use salt water. If you have a newer boat that has glued-down teack deck planks and no screws penetrating the subdeck, there is no real advantage to using salt water because if water should get down under the teak, it can't migrate down into the subdeck. Except perhaps down past deck hardware fastenings.

That may all be true. Although I've never heard that before.

But the old school reason for cleaning teak with salt water is because the teak absorbs some of the minerals in the salt water and that is a big factor in getting that clean but silver grey look to the teak. Plus it works very well to stop mold from growing.

 

[Marin]

Good point about the teak cleaners, Capt. Bill.

As to the salt water thing, that I learned from several sources, one being Bob Lowe on the GB owners forum who probably knows more about the care and feeding of GBs including their decks than God. But also from several of the shipwrights we've had work on our boat, including the very experienced guy who re-grooved and re-seamed our main deck back in 1999 or thereabouts.

The bit about the minerals may be true, too, however. Nobody I've talked to mentioned that aspect of using salt water, however. It was all about the potential effect on the subdeck core.

The clipper ship Cutty Sark, on display in London, had an iron-framed hull with teak planking. Most of the planking on the ship until it burned recently was original. Of course, it was also very, very thick planking, hull and deck. Not anyting like the less-than-an-inch-thick deck planking on the typical recreational boat.

If one has a boat with a teak deck and wants to keep the brown or blonde look, the best thing to do is to keep the boat covered. We have a full flying bridge cover on our boat, and since we never drive from up there the cover stays on most of the year. The teak on the flying bridge deck, while slightly silver in places, still has a lot of brown in it. We have not touched the deck since buying the boat other than a couple of small seam repairs. But the wood has not been cleaned, sanded, nothing since we acquired in in 1998. But the brown/tan color remains simply because it's not exposed to UV, dirt, and the weather.

 

[siestakey]

Marin
Because of the sundeck over my reardeck 80% stays brown the very back ( the hatch will age grey)

As far as sanding mine has not been sanded but I have redone the edge joints and the screw plugs

I thought it interesting I have 2 Grandbanks on my dock one keeps his teak natural aged grey the other oiled and parts spar varnished and even has the entire rail covered