plastic teak?

[Dman]

I finnally hacked off the 35 year old toerail and am looking at this plastic teak as an option,has anyone used this and if so any comments would be appreciated.Ease of working/expansion etc.

[Alan Wheeler]

Plastic teak is a thin plasic material of about 1/4" thickness. It is flexible. I dounbt it is going to be of any use as a toe rail. Unless I don't understand your question properly.
www.flexiteek.com is just one source of the stuff.

[Dman]

What i`m getting at i guess is the plastic lumber used for decking.There is solid 1x5 1/5 that you can rip.

[GordMay]

Dman might be referring to products such as “PlasTeak”:
http://www.plasteak.com/

[Dman]

Smacked that nail right on the head

[kimberlite]

i used this on my tartan and on the Amel to replace the steps on my boarding ladder.
great stuff. i would use more fasteners to hold on a toe rail. i believe fasteners hold better in wood.
fair winds,
eric

[Alan Wheeler]

Nice boat by the way Kimberlite.

Hey this plasteak stuff looks interesting. Is it expensive????

[hellosailor]

Damn, there are several different plastic "decking" manufacturers and I am under the impression that they use different materials. Some are recycled soda bottles (PET) some may have wood dust in them. I would contact the manufacturers directly to get specific information on dimensional stability and what adhesives will bond properly to them, if you will be caulking, etc.

As a decking material, I think they all offer fairly long guarantees. The material is *supposed* to be very good. It may or may not be any cheaper than ipe (ee-pay), aka Brazilian Ironwood, which is very similar to teak and also available from decking suppliers.

[Rick]

I've made several relatively small projects out of that plastic decking material. It is not inexpensive yet less so than teak, of course. You don't paint it because it weathers into a greyish finish that looks much like weathered teak without the disadvantage of weathered teak. Weathered teak is not as strong as finished teak.

The decking material is easy to work yet should be used in compressive loading applications, not tension loading. The material will not hold fine threads well, only coarse realtively deep ones like the #12 and larger self-tapping screws.

If you actually make a cap rail out of the stuff you will need to through-bolt the material using washers under the heads of the fasteners. You can still counter bore holes and use plug cutters to make plugs out of the stuff to fill the counterbores.

There is one DANGER! This material is VERY flammable. Light a small piece of it and you will see what I mean.

It is easily damaged if you drop something on it yet easily repaired as well.

[kimberlite]

http://www.plasteak.com/
they cut it to 6 foot lengths as i needed short lengths and was able to be shipped UPS.
2 years in the carib no fading.
thanks
for the comments about the boat.
i LOVE it.
fair winds,
eric

[Brent Swain]

The tropical hardwood on my top companionway step was last varnished with mmany coats two years ago and lookslike ****. my imitation wood linoleum looks much bwetter after 20 years and no maintenance.Plastic substitutes are a great breakthru.We get to use our former varnishing time cruising.
Brent