Teak Top Rails - To Cetol or Not Cetol

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

Cetol has a reputation for being orange, this is only for one of their product lines the "Light Teak" color as it has iron oxides in it to increase it's UV protection and hardness.

The clear comes in both gloss and semigloss (flatter) and is not tinted and makes a nice long wearing finish.

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You might be thinking of older Cetol formulations. Current Cetol Marine finishes aren't as orange as the original, and most folks seem to think the Natural Teak is the best (that is, least orange) of the new ones.

Also I don't think that there is a semigloss clear now, only gloss.

See http://www.yachtpaint.com/usa/diy/products/wood treatment/search.aspx.

Wow, what a great post. I have two upcoming projects. But I am waiting on good weather and warms days...July.

The first job is to sand my galley floor and put a high gloss finish. It was recommended here to use Seafin Aquaspap Gloss.

I only have one other place that has a teak rail, the cockpit. I was not diligent with yearly maintenance. So I now have these yellow/white spots coming up this year. The PO used Sailor gloss? So the rest of the rail looks great as we keep it covered until we want to show it off. Oh and the PO used duct tape and I have to get all the sticky stuff off.

So pics below. What would this TF community recommend how I proceed to fix these spots? Requires a complete stripping?

QB,

Sorry, it's called Satin not semi-gloss, my mistake.

Sikkens Cetol Marine Satin



I believe you are right the new formula is less orange but is is still a bit off in my opinion, I forget the name ( perhaps natural not natural light) of the orange-ish one, I have a small can of it on the boat as I tried it but did not like the color.

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

QB,

Sorry, it's called Satin not semi-gloss, my mistake.

Sikkens Cetol Marine Satin

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But that one is "translucent", not clear. I think the only clear Cetol Marine finish is Gloss.

Anyway, I'm with you. The old Cetol was awful and the new formulation is better but still not great looking IMO.

ASD,
Looks like your'e fine w a bit of touch up to protect the wood. Brightwork and Alaska just don't get along. I gave up and just basically used linseed oil and turpentine. If this boat is going to be a keeper to the extent you don't have much concern about resale I'd pick a good color you like and paint it. A bright color will show all defects ... think of a white boat w brown rust streaks. Black is awful .. unless there are black or similar things to go w it. A semi light color like light green or brown that is the opposite of loud would distract from the fact that the wood trim on the boat isn't varnished. Kinda like painting a car including the chrome names on the trunk. It shouts "cheap paint job".

Or you can buck up and use your boating weather to varnish the boat ... or just put some oil on it and keep doing it every six weeks. That only took me about 20 minutes per application but I wasn't very fussy about wiping up the runs. Or maybe Cetol will offer a middle of the channel solution.
What do you think you'll do?

I have been saddled with too much exterior teak on my boats since 1977. Over that time I have tried just about everything, 10 to 15 different brands of varnish, Polyester resin, epoxy, and on some cedar, Cetol. About 10 years ago I bought Epifanes Varnish and since then I have tried some other Epifanes products, but always go back to their best varnish. My boat sits outside for a full 6 months every year, from May 1 to Oct 31, then gets its shelter back and sits inside for 6 months. The winter weather is not nearly so hard on varnish if you can keep the rain off.
My varnishing regimen is to fix the holes in any of the varnish in the spring and attack the worst looking baords whenever I get the urge. That usually means that I redo about 1/2 of the woodwork every year, sometime the same boards over and over, and some can go 5 years without recoating. I constantly get compliments on having "just done" my varnishing, even when the person looking has only seen places I haven't yet touched. This occurred last week, as the fellow directly across the dock has just finished two full weeks of sanding and varnishing his VERY pretty sailboat. He admitted being cheap, as he uses varnish bought at Canadian Tire, or any other cheap source. After we spoke, he admitted that when he gets to his final coat (after two weeks, he wasn't there yet?) he may go and buy some Epifanes and try it out. I haven't seen him at his boat since, but will definitely ask when I do.

My experience with Cetol was disappointing. It took just as much work to prepare the surface, went on as easily as varnish, but didn't look right, as it has so much pigment in it that you lose sight of the grain, and had an unnatural colour. When it fell off, which started after only a short time, it was much harder to fix than varnish, so was banned from my list of acceptable products, along with the Can Tire cheapo varnish (yes, I have tried it). Those who like it seem always to be apologizing for its appearance, saying things like "she's an old girl", as if a good appearance is no longer possible.
worth $.02?

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Wow, what a great post. I have two upcoming projects. But I am waiting on good weather and warms days...July.

The first job is to sand my galley floor and put a high gloss finish. It was recommended here to use Seafin Aquaspap Gloss.

I only have one other place that has a teak rail, the cockpit. I was not diligent with yearly maintenance. So I now have these yellow/white spots coming up this year. The PO used Sailor gloss? So the rest of the rail looks great as we keep it covered until we want to show it off. Oh and the PO used duct tape and I have to get all the sticky stuff off.

So pics below. What would this TF community recommend how I proceed to fix these spots? Requires a complete stripping?

Click to expand...

Personally I would not use gloss on the interior of a boat. Especially a floor.

But if you must I'd use a interior grade one part oil based poly. Cheap, easy to work with and long lasting.


As to the bad spots that need touch up, you can patch them for sure. But if you want it to look it's best you need to start over.

Capt.Bill11 said:

Personally I would not use gloss on the interior of a boat. Especially a floor.

But if you must I'd use a interior grade one part oil based poly. Cheap, easy to work with and long lasting.


As to the bad spots that need touch up, you can patch them for sure. But if you want it to look it's best you need to start over.

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I'm not a wood guy (electrician) so how do you "touch up?" These spots appear to be under the finish and was created by water intrusion?

The "bad spots" are those that I can scrape to clean, golden wood and put several coats on, to bring the depth of varnish up to something close to the surrounding wood, then one light coat over the whole piece. If you can still see the fixed part, as different fro the rest, I sometimes take the whole piece right down. This is done rarely, as a fixed piece usually blends right in. I use an artist's brush for the repair. I have several sizes, but prefer 1/4" to 1/2" wide, soft bristle brushes. 6 to 10 coats. as these fixes are often only 1/4" or less in width, 1/4" to several inches in length, it doesn't take much effort to scrape, fix and topcoat. Then for a top coat, I prefer a badger 2" brush.

Thanks Koliver! The adventures of boating for sure....

MurrayM said:

Our boat is waaaay further down the Cetol disintegration path as it sat for years in the open before being sold.

Our first priorities were working on and upgrading the engine, battery system, etc, and have now started to chip away at the exterior woodwork as weather and house renovations permit.

Still deciding on letting it go silver (Badger does have 'workboat' heritage after all) or maybe pure tung oil. At the pace I'm going, it'll be a next year decision anyways!

As you can see from the last photo, the PO's weren't too careful with their masking tape application...

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In post #7, the second piicture, is this ready for the Cetol application? I have the whole boat to do this fall and I need to know where to stop the prep.

Greetings,
Mr. HW. Re: pic' #2. My opinion only...For simple sealing purposes only, with less regard to final appearance, yes that surface is ready. For a more appealing final appearance nope it's not. The method I would use is scrape the surface, with a very sharp scraper to "fresh" wood, sand and then start your coating process. (There's a thread somewhere dealing with scraping but good luck with ME remembering where it is). If you overcoat as in pic' #2 you will most definitely see the graying through the finish.
I have found scraping to be much more efficient and quicker that simply sanding. A very sharp scraper minimizes sanding.

Scraping and a heat gun work wonders. Almost like magic but not quite.

manyboats said:

Marty,
I've not used acetone on my teak. Not had any problems w adhesion either.

Quite a few raves for Cetol but I still don't know what the stuff is.

One thing that can be said for it is that my paint store stocks it but more significantly Alaskans use lots and lots of Cetol. Very popular. I've tried just about everything else though.

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SIKKENS CETOL:

From the MSDS sheet; Section #3 ( Composition/Information on ingredients ).

Appears to be Linseed Oil with a proprietary combination of vehicles, driers etc....etc.

If you don't have a full time deck hand to worry about the varnish, then this stuff and others like it, moves up on the list of things to stock which will more readily enable you a few more minutes to enjoy life. After all, when the time runs out.......that's it.

Right rudder,
Raw Linseed oil and turpentine is primarily what I used to mix my own oil finish. I also included a little spar varnish and Japan Drier. I think there's something else but I can't remember what. A time or two I used some Penetrol. Outside of Alaska boiled Linseed oil would probably work better. My rails were a little sticky but I was always able to sit on the rail and get up w clean and dry pants. After a fresh coat water would bead up .. Big Time.

If you used 1/3 Tung oil, 1/3 Turpentine and 1/3 spar varnish w a little drier you'd have a very high oil coating. Don't know if it would "dry" though. Dayly's Sea Fin Teak Oil and Sikken's may be related. I always thought the secret to an easily maintained clear finish was to create no "build". Sea Fin does have build and requires basically the same treatment as varnish IMO. alkyds is the base of most oil based paints. It was said earlier that Sikkins had alkyds in it so I'm think'in Sikken's is probably a medium high oil, Linseed oil and alkyd resin finish. Sikkins is probably closer to a paint than traditional varnishes. The mystery ingredient probably gives it it's foggy orange look and they probably found a substitute for the "orange" ingredient and launched their new "clear" coatings. But if they continue the Orange product it may indicate the Orange substitute isn't as good as the "orange".

High Wire said:

In post #7, the second piicture, is this ready for the Cetol application?

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Nope...just before and after photo's showing how bad it was and what it looked like right after the Cetol was removed.

10 Coats of anything is too much for me! What's the drawbacks of just oiling the teak wood? Every few mos or so just wipe it down with an oil soaked rag.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. HW. Re: pic' #2. My opinion only...For simple sealing purposes only, with less regard to final appearance, yes that surface is ready. For a more appealing final appearance nope it's not. The method I would use is scrape the surface, with a very sharp scraper to "fresh" wood, sand and then start your coating process. (There's a thread somewhere dealing with scraping but good luck with ME remembering where it is). If you overcoat as in pic' #2 you will most definitely see the graying through the finish.
I have found scraping to be much more efficient and quicker that simply sanding. A very sharp scraper minimizes sanding.

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I agree. Keep cleaning/scraping. You're almost there so don't stop now.

Jim Gandee said:

10 Coats of anything is too much for me! What's the drawbacks of just oiling the teak wood? Every few mos or so just wipe it down with an oil soaked rag.

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It gets dirty and moldy. Your be better if just keeping it clean and unfinished.

Jim Gandee said:

10 Coats of anything is too much for me! What's the drawbacks of just oiling the teak wood? Every few mos or so just wipe it down with an oil soaked rag.

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I tried that for awhile. The first two weeks looks beautiful and then starts going down hill. After two months it is dirty and black and you start all over again. I got tired of it after about three cycles and went the 7 coats of Cetol route and haven't looked back.

READY2GO said:

I tried that for awhile. The first two weeks looks beautiful and then starts going down hill. After two months it is dirty and black and you start all over again. I got tired of it after about three cycles and went the 7 coats of Cetol route and haven't looked back.

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Ready,
Can you elaborate on "dirty and black". Do you mean the wood just darkened due to the oil? What type of oil did you use? Where is your boat kept, climate? After the oil did the Cetol adhere properly? How did you prep for Cetol after the wood being oiled?
Thanks for your help.

Thanks, thats what I thought. Im used to 2 part teak cleaners for small bits of trim. My Monk is a whole lot more! Going the Cetol Natural teak and Gloss route.

Jim Gandee said:

10 Coats of anything is too much for me! What's the drawbacks of just oiling the teak wood? Every few mos or so just wipe it down with an oil soaked rag.

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Here's how mine looked w my own mixed oil. The deck plate w the cleats is w spar varnish but the cap rails are in oil. Mostly linseed oil and turpentine. Recoated every 6 weeks or so w a brush. Was a bit sticky as it never did really dry. Probably in California it would be objectionably sticky w the hot sun. I never did try the rag app but I did get dirty runs that I didn't bother to clean up. Dosn't turn or anything like that if you keep at it and my brush app took very little time but then I didn't clean up the drips. Also others may have gone black from lack of turpentine. I mixed my oil w turp because it's a natural fungicide. One could add other fungicides as well and perhaps zinc of some sort. Maybe w a rag one could apply much thinner coats that may work better.

Re the "dirty and black" here's an extreme example of it. (2nd pic) Lots of oil and then 2.5 years of neglect. But as you can see my wife just takes it off.

Jim Gandee said:

Ready,
Can you elaborate on "dirty and black". Do you mean the wood just darkened due to the oil? What type of oil did you use? Where is your boat kept, climate? After the oil did the Cetol adhere properly? How did you prep for Cetol after the wood being oiled?
Thanks for your help.

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We are in the Florida Keys.

The oil we used is Amazon Golden Teak Oil. There was some on the boat when I got it. I used it and then bought some more. It looks great when first applied but then gets dirty and black as time goes on. The black looks like mold of some kind. It is the same black you see on every boat with teak that has been neglected. I would clean it with a soft brush and a bucket of water with ammonia added to it. Rinse it and then let it dry before applying the teak oil. The other problem with oil is that it feels tacky, which probably facilitates atracting dirt and dust.

People told me that since I had been oiling the teak that varnish or anything else for that matter would not adhere to the teak. But I just cleaned it like I normally would only I did it twice and then cleaned it really good with acetone. It has been a couple of years now and it still looks great.

It took me a week of cleaning, scraping, sanding, and taping to get it ready. The next week I spent about two hours a day laying a coat of Cetol every morning. The first two coats were Natural Teak the last five were Clear Gloss. I did a light sanding in between every other coat. I want it to look nice but it is not a show boat. We were very happy with the way it turned out. Beautiful brightwork adds so much to a boat. I cannot stand to see new boats today with no brightwork.

When doing the brightwork the worst part is the sanding and that I think is why so many people do not want to do it. I found that with a heat gut and a good scraper it really cuts down on the sanding and actually gives you a better job as you are only removing the old coating and not any wood. When you have done everything you can with the scraper then you break out the sandpaper.

As always the above is only my opinion and experience.

This is a link to a couple of blog posts about refinishing our brightwork.

Living Aboard MV Walkabout: October 2013

READY2GO,
Tung oil .. Linseed oil ect is fungus food.
Need to maintain an anti-fungus program using oil.

A caution on linseed oil. A rag soaked in linseed oil can smolder and self ignite. Dont let used rags lay around.

What I have read, tung does not mildew but linseed will.

Psneeld,
I think they are both equally prone to grow black mould but Alaskans disagree. They frequently say tung oil dosn't work and turns black. Never heard any coments up there about Linseed oil.

High Wire,
Seems I got lucky. So the natural oils grow black mould and fire?

Here is just one of many sources I have read that says pure tung does not mildew.....

https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/get-more/tung-oil-debunking-myths




The comparison is to boiled linseed oil

OK so someomne else says it dosn't mildew. Do you actually think Tung oil dosn't mildew?

I see the comparison you present uses boiled linseed oil. I've never heard of boiled Tung oil. I don't know why. Do you? I've never used boiled LO .. always "raw". And the fungus likes the raw LO just fine.

There was an extensive thread on oil finishes some time ago and finishes were presented that I think were nothing but Tung oil. Not likely that would be possible if the Tung oil turned black from fungus like linseed oil does. So what you and your references say is probably true. Dosn't seem likely though. I have a quart of Tung oil and I use it as an additive.