The state of Teak....

[brackish]

...in the world today.  I recently bought some farm raised teak which is all you can get these days unless you can find salvage.  I got in a half dozen rough 4/4 boards and yesterday I face jointed and planed them to .750" finished.  I also had one board left over from a batch of old growth teak I bought about 18 years ago.  It was also 4/4 so I planed it at the same time.  In the pic below...on the left one of the new farm raised boards BEFORE planing.  In the center one of those farm raised boards AFTER planing.  On the right the old growth board AFTER planing.  The old growth stuff has much tighter grain and has color all the way through.  Wish I could find some more of it.  I guess the farm stuff will get a patina eventually.

[Billy]

Wow, there really is a big difference.

[NateD]

That is quite a difference. I stopped by a local wood shop yesterday to check out the selection to make a new companionway boards, 4/4 teak was $27/bd. ft., ipe was $7/bd. ft. The proprietor thought the ipe wasn't stable enough and would cup over time if glued up into a large board and left in the elements. Do you have any experience using other varieties than teak for boat applications?

[MacGyver]

What if you coated it in heated West System epoxy (heat the resin "105" then added hardner. heat like 3 seconds in the microwave...... or use heat gun to warm it up so it is very thin.)
pour it over the glued up boards, then spread in allowing it to soak in. This would seal them from the elements. Then coat with spar varnish, etc.

That should be good I would think. I would feel that it would also help with the dimensional stability too helping to bind the wood fibers together even more.

Mac

[Salty19]

Doesn't even look like teak.

Isn't teak supposed to be fine grained..that looks more like oak to me.

Is it possible they sent you something else?

Or perhaps the word teak is used too loosely these days as there are multiple varieties from South Africa and Africa, and with the shortage of teak...who knows what the lumber marketing folks are calling teak these days. Sort of like steak...one can call a Filet Mignon a steak, and the stores offer cube steak as well.  But I sure dont' consider cube steak a steak!

[brackish]

Nate-I've not tried to use anything outside in a wide panel other than teak.  I thought, however, that IPE was supposed to be up to that kind of exposure.  Any wood if kept perfectly sealed would do fine, it is that perfectly sealed thing that is hard to achieve over time.  The reason teak is used on boats is that it can be completely exposed and not cup, rot, or split when left so.

Salty - Yep it is teak, I can tell by the smell when I'm planing it.  But it is farm raised from Thailand.  The old growth stuff did have a tighter grain, because you were getting mostly heartwood from hundred year old trees.  This stuff is harvested as soon as they can get decent size boards out of it. 

Ironically, that light piece in the picture has darkened considerably with just a couple of days exposure to light.

[wes]

My deck boards (that's the deck bolted to my house, not the one on my sailboat) are ipe and have been sitting in the sun, rain and snow for five years now, with no finish on them whatsoever. We wanted them to weather to that nice silvery gray color, like untreated cedar. I can report that there is no cupping, rotting, splitting etc. at all. No noticeable change esxcept the color.

Compared to the state of my teak deck trim (that's the deck on my sailboat, not the one bolted to my house) when I acquired the boat from a PO who had kept it in a lake slip for five years, the ipe is the hands down winner. That teak was in such rough shape that I ended replacing every inch of it except the bowsprit insert. Including the dreaded eyebrows. Luckily Hutchins, bless them, still stocks all the teak parts.

I am in love with ipe.

Wes

[NateD]

I know ipe will weather well when, and I image warping/cupping isn't a problem when it is screwed down to something. But the guy at the specialty wood shop thought gluing it up breadboard style and making a companionway hatch would lead to significant cupping when left out in the elements. When I mentioned that companionway hatches made out of solid teak are often constructed this way and last for decades without significant cupping/warping, he didn't really believe me but conceded that teak is more stable than ipe. I bought a 4/4 x 6" ipe board yesterday and cut an 8" chunk off of it that I am going to leave out in the elements as an experiment, but it could take years to make any kind of conclusion...

[wes]

Interesting experiment -keep us posted.

One more comment for those who may be thinking of trying ipe for a boat project: even though ipe and teak look similar when varnished and are both resistant to weather and rot, they have very different structural properties. Teak is relatively soft and light, compared to ipe which is amazingly hard, dense and heavy. Picking up an ipe 2x4 is like picking up a slab of concrete. I could not drive a nail into a 4/4 ipe deck board without drilling a pilot hole first, and I went through several carbide tipped circular saw blades before I was done. So for boat projects I have used it only for relatively small items where the weight is not an issue. For something as big as a hatch drop board, the weight might be a problem.

Also would add that for a big, flat, thin surface like the drop board, there is a danger of warping/cupping with any solid wood. I went with teak veneer plywood for that reason - much more dimensionally stable, but still has the appearance of solid teak.

Wes

[brackish]

Also would add that for a big, flat, thin surface like the drop board, there is a danger of warping/cupping with any solid wood. I went with teak veneer plywood for that reason - much more dimensionally stable, but still has the appearance of solid teak.

True, but it can be minimized in the glue up method.  I rarely ever glue up using pieces wider than 2-1/2 to 3".  I'll rip a 6" wide board in half, turn it over so the grain direction alternates, then glue it back together.  If you glue up relatively narrow boards and alternate the grain you can minimize any warping on a wide panel. 

I had teak veneer ply drop boards on my Columbia 8.7.  They did well until I finally scrubbed all the veneer off   Of course that was after many years and I did not seal with anything other than oil.

[Koinonia]

If any of you guys are around the SC area of the country we have a place called east teak where the wood is imported. Best prices ever and I can get rough cut, or call them ahead and it will be finish cut to my spec, or get teak and holly ply or teak ply.  The place has a prison yard fence with a lumber yard inside!!