Painting Three-Piece Rub Rail

[ohanasailing]

Hey Guys,

New to this site.

We're spending some time in the yard with our 1975 Soverel 48' and on the list is refinishing the rubrail. The rubrail consist of three pieces of 4/4 teak planed to 7/8" to give us just under three inches of thickness. The three pieces are joined as follows: The layer closest to the hull is joined with self tappers. Layers two and three are fastened to the first layer with oval head wood screws.

There is no adhesive. The previous owner painted over the teak with a two part polyurethane. Between each layer of wood were cracks in the paint from the layers flexing. Without an adhesive between the layers I assume this type of flexing will occur. We've removed all of the paint and replaced several pieces of rotted teak with Iroko (can;t see paying $25/bf for lumber).

We can either Cetol over the bare wood (with small remnants of white paint in the seams) or look at ways to repaint If we can find a way to prevent cracking).

Any ideas on how to prevent the cracking if we repaint (removing rubrail not an option).

Thanks,

Tony

[Cheechako]

If it's purely cosmetic, it sounds like you need a paint with some flexibility. Not sure what that would be though, unless you want to use spar varnish. I suspect varnish wont last long down there. Maybe if you painted it with a teak like color, the dark cracks wouldnt show . There must be some flexible paints out there. How about just a stain? Maybe a dark , oil based deck stain? Would non skidding the top be too ugly? If you use it for a footing that would be good. Dura-Bak is somewhat flexible, but has a lot of non skid in it.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Tony.

[minaret]

I would pull the rail and re-fasten it with sikaflex (for easy removal later as this is a rub rail). Then you can seal it with a heavily thinned epoxy split coat, followed by a few coats of straight epoxy to fill the grain. Sand it out nice, coat 545, then topcoat awlgrip. It'll last ten years easy like that, because then you've stabilized the wood by sealing and back-sealing it. It won't move anymore and you'll cease to have problems with recurring cracks. And it'll look great! Since it's teak you could also finish bright this way....