Interior Wood

Moonstruck said:

Well, at great risk to myself, I will offer a paint suggestion. Interlux has a paint that looks dynamite on interior surfaces. It's called Grand Banks Beige,.

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Here is what Grand Banks Beige looks like on a Grand Banks (ours). Petit also makes this color. GB Beige has a slight greenish tinge that some people don't like but we do. It was an original factory color for American Marine on their Grand Banks boats for many years.

Right now GB Beige from Interlux is hard to come by because the plant that used to make it is shut down and the new plant that's going to make it isn't making it yet.

Fisheries Supply in Seattle has been back-ordered for months on the Interlux paint. They have the Petit paint in stock, so we bought a can last Saturday as we have some painting to do inside the boat. We'll see how it compares in color to the Interlux product.

If more light was needed, we'd open more curtains.





Having a light-colored ceiling can lighten up a dark-wood interior. The set of four ceiling LED light fixtures provides plenty of light during dark hours. Rope lights in the curtain valances can be used when ambiance is required. There are also small "reading" lights in the saloon's corners.

That's why I do not use teak oil. It darkens the teak. Try denatured alcohol, it removes the oil. Then some fine sand paper, 220 or more. If not, try that bleaching stuff, it starts with an X. It's a powder and you use a wet sponge or scuffy pad.

Oxalic acid?

Any bleaching and sanding needs to be done very carefully on any veneered surfaces or you burn right through the veneer.

Personally I'd paint the walls and leave the trim in teak.

Tango Bravo said:

Cardude that is what I am thinking of for replacements. Only need the fixtures as well.
Anyone want to buy original jeweled glass lighting fixtures to fund my LED project?
Has anyone just replaced the bulbs with LED conversions? BTW I have 16 fixtures for sale..

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Yes, definitely. No need to replace the fixtures unless you simply want to.
I have done my boat in LED completely now with replacement bulbs.
There are numerous vendors that have suitable bulbs. Dr LED, Superbright LEDs, Marinebeam, etc., etc.

Just keep a sample of what you now have at hand and spend some time on the websites. Many chandleries are now offering stock on hand. Although somewhat pricier you can compare "bulb" to "bulb".
Watch the colours , ie. cool vs warm white. Cool can be harsh sometimes.
I used the warm white.

My very old fixtures required an adapter to get from the B15 twin pin to an acceptable bulb but it all works and well. Better light, lots less current draw and with the voltage regulated bulbs the brightness does not change with normal battery voltage changes.

Marin said:

Fisheries Supply in Seattle has been back-ordered for months on the Interlux paint. They have the Petit paint in stock, so we bought a can last Saturday as we have some painting to do inside the boat. We'll see how it compares in color to the Interlux product.

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So just a quick follow-up to this. Today we tried the Petit Grand Banks Beige. It's pathetic. It has no resemblance to actual Grand Banks Beige at all. For all practical purposes, it's almost pure white.

Some of the interior surfaces of our boat have the original paint as applied by American Marine in 1973. Interlux Brightside Grand Banks Beige is a very close match to this. The Petit paint is totally different, as I say, almost white. The only thing I can assume is that the colorists at Petit have never actually seen Grand Banks Beige and are simply using the name for one of their slightly off-white tints.

Fortunately Defender has the Interlux Brightside in stock so we ordered two cans. The Petit paint is off to the dumpster.

A vote for marinebeam. Replaced our 10 overhead bulbs...the new ones fit perfectly. Warm white and very bright. I'm going to rewire my 110v reading lamps into the DC cicuit and use 12v led bulbs. Cuts out the inverter middleman when we're on the hook. Makes a big difference in cabin brightness. Although now I can see how shabby the cushions are. Sometimes darker is better.

My boat has something like those G4 LEDS in all of the original fixtures, and I love it. They don't heat up, so they can just rest on the glass and the light is great. I've done a c oupke.of sailboats in the past by replacing the bulbs with a set of lower candle power LEDS I got at Ikea. They come in six packs for like 40 dollars. You throw out the transformer and solder the little stick - up lights in the fixtures. Perfect fix to save power, and the light is perfect.

Most of our boats are clad in teak ply veneer which has become a traditional look by default because of construction expediency and lack of designer input at the yards. A much more even balance of painted wood and varnished teak or mahogany would be more authentically traditional and more typical of wood boats from the early 1900's. I prefer that look, and can understand why some would want to paint some of their wood. The problem with that is that they weren't detailed in a traditional way which would give us clear and proportional lines from which to start and stop paint.

Marin, Don,
I buy Grand Banks Beige and haven't used it yet in it's pure form. I use it to mix w two other colors to get my own color .. Three Can Tan mostly.

Paint varnish or stain wise we haven't touched our interior teak. We have lots of windows and don't feel the boat is dark inside. Our inside teak looks great and never changes.

I changed out all my interior bulbs with LEDs and was able to free up a breaker in my panel.

tegdesign said:

A much more even balance of painted wood and varnished teak or mahogany would be more authentically traditional and more typical of wood boats from the early 1900's..

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This is the way Grand Banks boats were until they started applying teak veneer to all or most of the interior bulkheads sometime in (I think) the 1980s. The bulkheads themselves are mahogany. For many years, Grand Banks Beige (the correct one) was used on the mahogany panels which is accented by bright-finished teak trim, doors, etc. This is the way our 1973 boat is.

It's a much nicer look than the later, more common all-teak (veneer) interior, which is not only darker, but since there's teak everywhere it becomes sort of like wallpaper--- there but not really seen.

First two photos are the aft cabin of our boat. The last two are from our copy of the sales brochure for our vintage of GB. This is how the boats looked when they left the factory (minus the model ). The main cabin of our boat is exactly like this in every respect except an AC/DC refrigerator/freezer has replaced the original ice box under the galley counter and a converted oil lamp hangs in place of the ceiling light over the table.

I like the pained wall look much better to the all teak look as well. The all teak look is just to dark for the size of the space for me. The painted look seems cleaner and a bit more modern as well. Even though it's arguably retro.

Wifey B: Why is the model dressed like that on a boat?

BandB said:

Wifey B: Why is the model dressed like that on a boat?

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Because it was 1974. People got dressed up to ride on an airplane, too. Today, every flight looks like it's deporting a bunch of homeless people to Detroit, even in business class.

Sort of like Marin's. The Herreshoff look/style. Dark trim with white panels. Lightens dark interiors. Our old woodie had it. Much prefer it to the all teak interiors.

dwhatty said:

Sort of like Marin's. The Herreshoff look/style. Dark trim with white panels. Lightens dark interiors. Our old woodie had it. Much prefer it to the all teak interiors.

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Love that interior,Dave. I liked the exterior of that boat too.

Marin said:

Because it was 1974. People got dressed up to ride on an airplane, too. Today, every flight looks like it's deporting a bunch of homeless people to Detroit, even in business class.

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Wifey B: Oooppps....olden days. I wasn't born then.

Marin said:

This is the way Grand Banks boats were until they started applying teak veneer to all or most of the interior bulkheads sometime in (I think) the 1980s. The bulkheads themselves are mahogany. For many years, Grand Banks Beige (the correct one) was used on the mahogany panels which is accented by bright-finished teak trim, doors, etc. This is the way our 1973 boat is.

It's a much nicer look than the later, more common all-teak (veneer) interior, which is not only darker, but since there's teak everywhere it becomes sort of like wallpaper--- there but not really seen.

First two photos are the aft cabin of our boat. The last two are from our copy of the sales brochure for our vintage of GB. This is how the boats looked when they left the factory (minus the model ). The main cabin of our boat is exactly like this in every respect except an AC/DC refrigerator/freezer has replaced the original ice box under the galley counter and a converted oil lamp hangs in place of the ceiling light over the table.

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Very nice I'm temped to paint some of the larger (teak wallpaper) panels on my boat. But I worry the next person who might like to buy the boat from me will be an "anything wood is holy" person.

BandB said:

Wifey B: Oooppps....olden days. I wasn't born then.

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Yeah. You kids have a lot to learn......

Ugh, these posts about painting natural wood are giving me an anxiety attack. Painting teak or mahogany - heck, the copper on the Statue of Liberty is kind of an uneven green, let's paint it. If God wanted fine wood to be painted, he would have had trees circulate latex primer instead of tree sap. Painted teak and mahogany - ought to be a felony.

Yea and so do we Marin.

Everybody's got an opinion.
One could also say if God wanted steel not to rust my car wouldn't have been painted. I design custom yacht interiors and custom furniture every working day of my life and wood is a means to an end for me. It gets bleached, stained, burnt, varnished, enameled or anything else that fits the look. It doesn't matter the species, walnut, epe, teak, fir, koa...whatever. god created trees but man created lumber for his creative needs

kthoennes said:

Painted teak and mahogany - ought to be a felony.

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There's mahogany and there's mahogany. The plywood used to make the bulkheads of boats like Grand Banks is very Plain Jane stuff. No figuring at all, just straight grain boring looking wood. It's good quality wood, but it's the same stuff in appearance that they use in places like China and the Philippines to make shipping crates. I've watched them being made at an aerospace maintenance and modification center in Xiamen, China. You wonder why use mahogany but over there it's readily available and dirt cheap.

Even with a varnish, oil, etc. finish it's really boring-looking wood in terms of it's appearance. In fact, what it would look like in a boat is an interior that's been painted a uniformly blah, cheap-looking brown color. Which is why it's either painted a real color on the earlier Grand Banks or covered with teak veneer on the later ones.

I'd probably not be inclined to paint teak veneer even if I wanted the painted panel look for the reason tegdesign mentioned a couple of posts ago. This is assuming it's nice teak veneer. This could affect the resale value if one was concerned about that. A lot of boat buyers these days seem to equate an all-teak interior with their image of a "real" boat.

kthoennes said:

Ugh, these posts about painting natural wood are giving me an anxiety attack. Painting teak or mahogany - heck, the copper on the Statue of Liberty is kind of an uneven green, let's paint it. If God wanted fine wood to be painted, he would have had trees circulate latex primer instead of tree sap. Painted teak and mahogany - ought to be a felony.

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God didn't peel the trees to make the veneer, man did. And latex actually is from trees.

If this is veneer, I'm fooled/impressed.

framing and louvres (solid lumber) The rest, probably even the teak and holly, would be nice quality veneer.

markpierce said:

If this is veneer, I'm fooled/impressed.

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Teak veneer is real teak, it's just real thin teak. But in appearance, it can look no different than solid teak. The only thing you see with solid wood is the outside, which is the only thing you see with veneer.

Things like the door and panel frames and probably the door panels, louvers, etc. in your photo are most certainly solid teak. The veneer would just be used on the bulkhead surfaces and perhaps the flooring.

Given the price of teak these days, even plantation teak, veneer makes sense on the bulkheads, sidewalls, etc. if you want to keep the price of a boat even remotely competitive. Make all that stuff out of solid teak and the engine(s) start looking cheap by comparison.

tegdesign said:

framing and louvres (solid lumber) The rest, probably even the teak and holly, would be nice quality veneer.

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Yes, according to the builder it's "teak veneer with solid teak trim, doors and drawer fronts."