varnished teak decks

I have found that tung oil ( a natural oil from the tung nut) worked very well on rails and teak that was around hatches. It kept it from drying out and cracking, looked very nice, plus seemed to last a lot longer than teak oil. The tung oil gave the teak a waxed feel, water beaded, and I don't recall it being slippery. It does not give it the high gloss but almost a mat finish. Here in the Fl. sun, I have seen a lot of teak dry,curl, and split when neglected.

Put cetol on my cockpit teak sole once, one of the bigger mistakes I made early on with our boat, sanded it all off and el-natural.

C lectric said:

"""""forest of Cetol flakes flagging in the wind""""""

They are wind vanes.

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I tried Cetol once on my cap rails on a sailboat . It was new teak and it looked good for about 2 years then started flaking off. I wonder if thinning first few coats or wiping teak down with acetone before applying Cetol might help . I know it has some pigment in it and the oil in teak just pushes it off .

Marin said teak decks are no more trouble than glass or steel. I don't agree with that for Florida or the Gulf Coast an any other tropical or semi tropical area. However the foreman of our carpentry shop loves teak decks in Florida.

yachtbrokerguy said:

Marin said teak decks are no more trouble than glass or steel. I don't agree with that for Florida or the Gulf Coast an any other tropical or semi tropical area. However the foreman of our carpentry shop loves teak decks in Florida.

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You need to learn to read what people write, not quote what they didn't write. I said a NEW teak deck, not teak decks in general. As teak decks get old, are not properly cared for, are exposed to harsh environments, are abused by the use of teak cleaners and coatings, sure, they begin to require increased care or work to bring them back. Everybody knows that or should.

I think my photos are all clickable.
Why are many here not.
For example all of Mark's (Coot) aren't.
I assume it has something to do w how they are posted. Or is it equipment?

hmason said:

Mark,
I like your hat.

Howard

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Custom-labeled in the Philippines with the help of Perla to select the worker. (Sorry, I've already gifted all the extra hats.)

Starside, I love that Captain's chair!!

ShinyTransom said:

Starside, I love that Captain's chair!!

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Thanks. They are the original. Very uncomfortable & much smaller than they look. Peeps in the 1930's must have had small butts! LOL

Starside, our old 1929 35' ACF express spent most of her life in DC, her DC registration number was DC 225 A. The 225th boat registered in DC. We bought her from the original owner, moved her to Annapolis and cruised her for 5 years most of the mid-atlantic (sold her in 1982). She looked very much like yours and seeing your pix brought many happy memories back.

Thanks

Ziggy, that's amazing!

Any pics?

One of the few pix I have digitized.

You might also notice we are still into express cruisers.

Ziggy8321 said:

One of the few pix I have digitized.

You might also notice we are still into express cruisers.

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Gorgeous! & love the small mast! That's classy.

My C&L 44 has a similar pattern to the teak deck boards in the OP's attachment. I Varnish the perimeter boards and the covering 1/4 rounds against the cabin sides. This gives a traditional good look to the otherwise gray deck and leaves good non-skid where it is needed.

I wonder what would be better? Straight 30W or 15W40 on teak decks. That's what we used to apply to wood flatbed trailer decks. Out in the weather all the time and never saw any rotted planks. I don't think it was new oil we used either (carbon stain?) so the wood was darkish in "color" but I did a lot of walking on the 40' trailerbed in all kinds of weather and don't remember any slipryness. Only "oiled" the decks once a year or less.

I offer this partly to mostly as a joke but think it may be an option to just letting the teak bake in the sun and turn light grey and eventually checking must take place. Of course new oil would be used and it probably would look nice ... but?

The petroleum based motor oil would probably attack the deck seams and their adherence to the sides of the grooves and the deck would start leaking in a pretty big way. Not a concern with your trailer decks.

Marin,
Could be. But if it was so oil based paints and thinners would perhaps produce lifting of the seam sealers too. I had my cap rails basically awash in turpentine and paint thinner or/and solvent and no damage to the seams w SikaFlex seemed affected.

The reason I see that would make this undesirable is that the oil would attract dirt so the deck surface would not be a nice place for Bakers Babes to lay out looking for looks.

The fishermen in SE coat their decks w (are you ready for this?) roofing tar. Works in Alaska. An 85 degree day in WA may keep one off the boat though.

Teak oil (not the usual stuff they call "teak oil" ) but the oil of the Teak tree would probably be better than anything. Interestingly I have a can of real Teak oil and it says on the can"for interior use". That makes no sense to me at all.

But I do think that probably some kind of oil would be best on Teak decks.

manyboats said:

But I do think that probably some kind of oil would be best on Teak decks.

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Oiling a teak deck is not recommended by all the knowledgeable people I've talked to or read who have a lot of experience with teak decks. One issue is dirt. It attracts and holds it and then gets ground into the wood by people walking on it which a)gets the deck very dirty and b) acts like sandpaper to make wood cells go away as people walk on the deck and grind the dirt against it. And wood cells that go away never come back.

Another issue is that, depending on the seam compound that was used and the nature of the oil that is used, it can soften deck seams but worse, it can cause them to separate from one of both sides of the groove and water will start getting down under the deck.

Taking care of a teak deck and brightwork on teak trim are two different things. While there are lots of products people try to make a teak deck look "brown" all the time, it's been proven over a zillion years that the best way to maximize the life of a teak deck--- bearing in mind that nothing lives forever--- is to keep it clean and put nothing at all on it. Maintain the integrity of the deck seams and deck plugs if the planks are screwed down, and that's it.

Ziggy8321 said:

One of the few pix I have digitized.

You might also notice we are still into express cruisers.

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You have great taste in boats, new and old!

Marin said:

Oiling a teak deck is not recommended by all the knowledgeable people I've talked to or read who have a lot of experience with teak decks. One issue is dirt. It attracts and holds it and then gets ground into the wood by people walking on it which a)gets the deck very dirty and b) acts like sandpaper to make wood cells go away as people walk on the deck and grind the dirt against it. And wood cells that go away never come back.

Another issue is that, depending on the seam compound that was used and the nature of the oil that is used, it can soften deck seams but worse, it can cause them to separate from one of both sides of the groove and water will start getting down under the deck.

Taking care of a teak deck and brightwork on teak trim are two different things. While there are lots of products people try to make a teak deck look "brown" all the time, it's been proven over a zillion years that the best way to maximize the life of a teak deck--- bearing in mind that nothing lives forever--- is to keep it clean and put nothing at all on it. Maintain the integrity of the deck seams and deck plugs if the planks are screwed down, and that's it.

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Agree with all this 100 times over.

Marin and caltex,
Teak is wood from a tree.
Are you two saying wood dosn't need any protection at all? ......
Apparently so.
I disagree. But I should'nt use the word "need". "Benefit" would be a better choice.
One thing I agree w and that's the pretense that "Dirt" gets "ground into the wood" ... to some degree. Normal wear may remove the "dirt" as well ... I really don't know.

One admission I'll make. I don't use engine lube oil on the 2x4 decking of my 14' utility trailer. I use my own oil mix .. mostly Linseed oil and turpentine but w some varnish. Don't recall if there's any "ground in dirt".

caltexflanc said:

You have great taste in boats, new and old!

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Your taste "ain't too shabby" either

Ziggy8321 said:

Your taste "ain't too shabby" either

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Ditto!!


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's

manyboats said:

Marin and caltex,
Teak is wood from a tree. Are you two saying wood dosn't need any protection at all? ......

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Depends on what the wood is being used for. If it's on a house, yes, it will benefit from protection (paint, stain, etc.)

If it's a deck surface, the intengrity of the seams and the longevity of the wood will be maxmized if you don't put anything on it at all ASSUMING that what you want is a surface with great traction, wet or dry.

If all you want to do is maximize the life of a teak deck surface with no regard for anything else, sure, paint it. Or do a real good varnish job and then protect it from UV and the weather in a boathouse when you're not using the boat. But in both cases you'll be maximizing the longevity of the wood while sacrificing traction, particulary when it's wet.

So in my wife's and my opinions both of those kinds of protection negate the benefits of having a teak deck in the first place, which is to have a deck that gives great foot traction wet or dry. For that, you need the wood surface to be bare and clean.

So you have to pick your priorities. There's no one-answer-solves-everything other than simply not having a teak deck at all. And that's a matter of personal preference. My wife and I really like a teak-surfaced deck and we don't like a fiberglass-surfaced deck. So our priority is maximizing the life of the teak decks on our boats while still preserving the properties that make them worth having, which is traction. That means bare wood.