Teak deck refinishing demand?

[BlueMaxx]

Hi all,

I am selling off my woodworking shop and tools save for a few.
I have a good set up to refinish wood.
Is there any demand for this?
I was trying to limit the amount of tools to keep with me.
Looking at ways to supplement my income when I cut the strings here.

Thanks!

M

[Schooner Chandlery]

Owners can clean their decks themselves and typically rework/refurbishment of teak decks is pretty specialized involving fastener issues, recaulking, repaying seams and sometime replacing wood or substrate that isn't really anything like interior wood refinishing that you may be familiar with.

Conversely, varnishing (outside) requires a good range of scrapers and some of the tools like those you may have available. Cruisers don't seem to be in the market for such services but you will find other boaters approaching you for help with their varnishwork if you happen to have sharp looking varnish on your own boat.

I don't do varnish work or canvas work for others (my boat only) but I have been approached by boaters wanting to employ my services when they see me doing the work on our boat. Same goes with my husband as he's doing work on the boat -- he gets queries of whether he can do "xyz" and fill in the blank with whatever they think he, as a cruiser, may have the expertise to do.

We have a wood boat that is fairly well maintained so it's not a reach for other boaters to jump to the assumption that what they need done can be done by him or me. He had one boater offering quite a bit of money to re-do the cabin sole (refinish and replace some bits) and that was teak, of course. So--there you have it -- a long answer that is "maybe"

Lots of varnish on our cruising boat:

[jeffborn]

Good Morning Schooner
I'm about to take ownership of an 88 Nauticat 38. Lots of teak topside needing refinishing.
Would you mind sharing your techniques and the materials of choice you utilize? It would be of great help to me. Also, do marinas frown on sanding and refinishing in your slip?
Any input is appreciated.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, jeffborn.

[Schooner Chandlery]

Hi Jeffborn. Welcome to the forum. It's really a lot better (long term) to clean and bleach your teak rather than sand it to get it clean in the first place. Oxylic acid is the primary ingredient in most teak cleaners--it take out chemically induced darkening/blackening of the wood from iron compounds. Since there's a lot of iron compounds in dirt, it will help quite a bit. It doesn't remove the blackening of rot, of course.

Teak is soft, so scrubbing at it or sanding it takes away quite a bit of material very quickly. Better to bleach than remove materials. Once you've got it nice and clean, you can put on many coats of varnish. You'll find that the varnish protects the teak very nicely. Get at least 6 to 8 coats on ad try to add 2 to 4 coats per year. When you add more varnish, you will scrape or sand off the top coats until you get down to firm hard varnish. Then add your new coats. As long as you maintain with a few coats each year (or 2x per year if you've got the time for it), you'll not have to go down to bare wood for many years--possibly decades.

The marinas aren't too thrilled with your sanding away at wood or varnish at the docks, no. We tend to do our varnishing at anchor anyway because there are less lines to cross the covering boards and get in the way of the fresh varnish.

I hope this information is helpful to you. If you have teak decks, you won't varnish, you'll just clean them (and don't scrub hard as that takes away wood, too) with a cleaner that includes oxylic acid. We don't carry a teak cleaner or Oxylic acid at this time in the Schooner Chandlery, but we do have two different spar varnishes that you might like. I've personally used Behr Spar Varnish (can't get anymore), Captains, Schooner, and Epifanes.

Fair winds,

[jeffborn]

Schooner
Thank you for the information and insight.
Makes very good sense and don't mind hearing my sanding will be minimal.
At anchor for the work is a good idea and not a bad way to be out on the water while working on the boat. Will be heading for Quebec City for Survey and Sea trial next week.
Thank you