Refinishing interior teak

We are currently refinishing our newly purchased Sundowner that is all teak on the inside except for the ceiling. Several sections of the walls were faded in places that weren't protected from the sun by cushions. Needless to say there are only few choices of teak stain none of which came close to matching the color of 30.y.o. teak. I bought a quart of Min wax cherry stain and wiped it on the faded areas and was pleasantly surprised it was a perfect match. On some areas I uses 2 or three coats to bring the color back then on the final coat I stained all of the surfaces including the unfaded areas resulting in a uniform teak color. I finished the job with 2 coats of marine varnish and now the cabin has a showroom quality look. On a previous boat the marine varnish in the interior was maintenance free for years. For those of you dealing with teak maintenance this may help out.

That info will surely help a few of us.
Thank you

Interior Teak

Geeze Turner, thanks for doing the legwork for us. I also have 30 year old teak with a few dings, (my saloon furniture like to "walk around" when underway) and have been known to attack the walls.

. Several sections of the walls were faded in places that weren't protected from the sun by cushions. Needless to say there are only few choices of teak stain none of which came close to matching the color of 30.y.o. teak. I bought a quart of Min wax cherry stain and wiped it on the faded areas and was pleasantly surprised it was a perfect match.


Thank you for the lead .... I got the very same issue to deal with. I would have thought that cherry would make it go red'ish ??

FB

after the stain do you put anything over it as a sealer and or gloss?

I've done much the same to several boats over the years.

I work to make the faded areas match the unfaded areas. I'll experiment with various colors of stain and sometimes have ended up mixing stains.

I more often in the past have stripped the old finish and stained the bare wood. Usually, the color shift will be partly in the removed finish and partly in the wood.

A little practice will make it easy to 'feather' the stain, more or less added color, as needed. Rub the rag a little harder, or a little sooner.

You do have to protect the stain; it's a stain, not a finish. You can take paint thinner to a dried oil stain and remove a bit of the stain where it's still on the surface. (I have no experience with water-based stains.) I prefer satin finishes for interior work. The original finishes were usually satiny; the LeComte was French Polished (looked satiny). I think gloss is a little too glittery for interiors.

The finish in our FuHwa is in such good shape that I hope to be able to simply 'freshen' some areas using wipe-on, rub-out finishes. Minwax Wipe-On Poly - Clear Polyurethane Finish | Minwax I think the wipe-on Tung Oil is not water, ring, drip resistant enough (certainly the old DuPont Floor Finish - no longer made - was not). I use this for interior furniture: Minwax Tung Oil Finish - Oil-Based Wood Finish | Minwax

Very seldom needs to be done on our boat.
We just mix some oil (usually Linseed or Tung) with turpentine. Turp is kinda stinky so do it in the summer. Don't need much oil perhaps 10 - 20%. Never cover it w anything but more of same. Our boat is over 40 years old and we don't feel we've got a problem w dark areas but some areas are a bit darker.

To lighten up the dark areas some light sanding in those areas may lighten up the end result. May be dificult to blend though. We paint our floors w water based floor paint .. dark green. The dark green probably helps w the darker teak low in the cabin.

I found a way to lighten water stained teak, as long as not varnished. I wipe on Wink , a mild acid that you buy at Walmart. I have found , if you let it sit on, it will work, reapply as necessary, to desired effect reached.

In areas exposed to sunlight, I finish with an exterior varnish with UV inhibitors. If I then want a satin or semi gloss finish instead of high gloss, the final coat is in semi or satin. This has worked well over the years to preserve the colour of the interior teak.

Whatever you do if it involves sanding or dulling of existing finish be extremely careful as frequently the veneer may be very thin. Remove no more of the surface than you absolutely have to.

Hotrod said:

I found a way to lighten water stained teak, as long as not varnished. I wipe on Wink , a mild acid that you buy at Walmart. I have found , if you let it sit on, it will work, reapply as necessary, to desired effect reached.

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Oxalic acid brightens teak, mahogany, oak, pine.

Bilge has made a very important point, which I will add a smidge to.

You can/should, must if the finish is gloss, sand the old finish a bit for cleanliness and to provide tooth for the new finish. Before you begin you ought to decide whether you're preserving the old finish or removing the old finish to expose new, fresh wood. If you're preserving the old finish then you use fine sandpaper, 220 grit is pretty normal, or fine steel wool. The original manufacturer's finish normally will have been sprayed on and is pretty thin; sand just enough to make it uniformly dull and clean. There's just a little latitude here, it's easy to sand through the finish to the wood. If you sand through, you'll learn to leave the deeper dings...it's called 'character', 'patina'. If you sand through, there's more care to be taken in staining and refinishing since the raw wood will take finish differently than the sanded adjacent finish.

If you decide to remove the old finish, the veneers on production plywoods are quite thin. They used to be, say until the '50s or '60s, 1/32" thick; now they are routinely 1/48" thick. That's not many strokes of sanding and precious little if you're using a scraper and heat gun. It can be done, I've done it, but proceed, oh, so gently. A palm sander with fresh 220 grit paper is remarkably fast sanding through 1/48" veneer!

Entertainingly, some production plywood is made with veneers that were sewn together into sheets before being put in the plywood manufacturing press with the core veneers. When the glue had cured, the new plywood was lightly sanded to remove the threads from the surface and the stubs of thread did not show. When you refinish plywood like this, you may sand through enough to see the threads that remain in the glueline zig-zagging along the joints. Very discouraging! (We rejected purchasing a sailboat because of this... and it's 7' draft.)

If sanding at all, never use a powered sander on that thin veneer.

In 40 yrs of teak interior ownership I have never sanded through a veneer while hand sanding with 220 or finer grit paper. Using a powered sander, however, ........ I learned quickly.

koliver said:

If sanding at all, never use a powered sander on that thin veneer.

In 40 yrs of teak interior ownership I have never sanded through a veneer while hand sanding with 220 or finer grip paper. Using a powered sander, however, ........ I learned quickly.

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Never a power sander!!!

One minor point ,on a boat when standing below ,what is over your head is the overhead, the stuff covering the hull next to you is the ceiling.

An oiled or low gloss to finish will reflect less ,for less chance at a Vomitorium in a sea way.

I redid mine last fall. I completely removed the original finish, sanded to 220 grit than applied 6 coats of Epifanes gloss varnish followed by two coats of Epifanes rubbed effect varnish. It came out pretty nice and should last indefinitely.

TDunn,
Must be dazzling.

FF,
What is "the stuff covering the hull next to you"?