Care of Teak - beautiful teak

[Bob23]

Salty:
   Sounds sweet. My 23's exterior teak has seen 2 summers of service with no maintenance. This winter, her teak will get a couple of service coats. Like it or not, the sun does seem to break down the finish a bit. Starting out with 7 coats of Flagship varnish gave me a head-start.
   Now the interior. I thought that a Teak oil finish was good. Then I started getting a lot of mould on the interior even though the boat had positive ventilation. My theory is that the Teak oil acually encourages mold growth, much like linseed oil will. this winter, I'm removing all traces of it and rubbing in a thinned varnish coating. I tried a trial areal this summer and, voila! no mold!
   Bob23 on the hard for the winter!!

[spaul]

Bob, you're on to it. I've had the same problem with the interior. I installed a solar vent which helps tremendously but also switched to a synthetic oil. Natural oils do encourage mold and mildew growth during their decomposition. Using a synthetic oil will nearly stop that both inside and outside.
Over the years teak has been the subject of much discussion. I've come to the conclusion that bare teak, oiled with a synthetic is probably the best solution where it requires only periodic re-oiling.
I cleaned, removed, sanded and sealed some of my external teak with epoxy, then gave it several coats of Cetol. Looks absolutely beautiful but there are signs of peeling already where I didn't get the oil out of the teak. Think I'll either go synthetic wood or back to synthetic oil some day when the weathering stops.

Steve Paul
cp27/2 "IM PAUL SIVE"
Nashville, In

[Paul]

Lemon oil (or natural oils mixed with lemon oil) is a very effective mold inhibitor.  I understand that natural oils are best suited for interior use.  The key, as you've mentioned, is good ventilation.  But, that's true for all boat interiors!!  In fact, the Gougeon Brothers book on epoxy and wood construction (a text book from West System Epoxy) highly encourages well ventilated boats, whether made with composites or wood.  So, FWIW, finish the interior wood as you'd like and include good ventilation.

As for the exterior wood,  a simple and effective treatment is teak cleaner and restorer.  Basically, this involves oxalic acid to clean the teak per the instructions followed by a neutralizer.  This prepares it for the finish.  A proprietary finish, which combines Tung Oil with a sealer is the usual case.  Different manufacturers will have varying combinations based upon the climate in which the boat will be sailed.  In other words, a New England boat can use one formulation while a Florida boat will likely have a different one.  One with more UV filtering. 

But, the bottom line is, expect to spend some time maintaining brightwork.  There is no finish that will exempt a boatowner form maintaining exterior wood work.  Of course, one could replace all the wood with either plastic or stainless steel, but then again.........

$0.02

[Bob23]

Steve and Paul:
   Thanks for the feedback. Which synthetic oils do you use? As far as ventilation, I have a Vetus solar vent on the cabintop and a Defender passive vent on deck at the bow. I open the portlights whenever a stretch of good weather is forcast.  So I came to the conclusion that the teak oil was the culprit.
    HORRORS! Replace my beautiful teak with plastic? Not on my ship on my watch. I find the upkeep relaxing and rewarding; brightly finished teak is quite befitting a Compac 23.
   Bob23

[K3v1n]

Well there is always PlasTeak


-Kevin

[spaul]

Hey Bob, Paul, Kevin;

I looked seriously at Trex and Plasteak and decided no way Jose. The trex isn't really very strong in thinner sections and I thought the Plasteak (sp?) might not be any different.
I use lemon oil for the interior and there are several synthetic teak oils, just read the bottle, it should say it's synthetic.

As for my teak on my cp27 I believe I'll go back to what Bob recommends, cleaning and oiling is not that big of a deal. Besides, it gives me somthing to do while I'm disposing of my excess beer !

Regards,
Steve

cp27/2 "IM PAUL SIVE"
Nashville, In

[Paul]

Hear Hear!!

More grog to ya. 

[Bob23]

Ahh...now I know what to do with all that excess beer! This site is truly the source of much wisdom and knowledge!
Bob23, getting ready to sand and varnish!