Removing Teak decks- Experiences?

[westrivertrawler]

You will have to add "something" to the deck to allow water to drain off the deck through the scuppers; otherwise you will have pools of water collecting on the deck.

[Despacio]

Probably a good point, but it's possible the decks will drain, if not I certainly could modify the scuppers. Grinding out the bottom and glassing would be easier than building up the decks.

Depends on where it puddled, I guess.

[Despacio]

So, what's it look like under my deck?

I removed one piece in my leak stopping activities. The leak was in a corner at the bottom of the radius. Impossible from the inside, easy from the outside.

I found a nicely preserved smooth molded fiberglass surface. Easy to make nice decks out of them.

Now that I have NO LEAKS and am an expert at teak decks, I think removing them has worked it's way to the bottom of the list.

[jakevr]

Your decks look like they need alot of work.. Im very happy I removed mine. If you think there not leaking and that there's no water wicking throughout you are wrong. There's more hidden problems that you don't see then you could immagine

[Despacio]

They are actually in pretty good shape. That corner is the worst looking as I have removed all of the fasteners more than once trying to find the leak, and have spilled resin and sealer. Knocking off the plugs and a light sanding and it'll look pretty good.

See photos earlier in this thread.

[Despacio]

I started removing my teak decks today. It's easier than I thought it would be.

[jakevr]

despacio, what did you use to get the black adhheasive off? what made you decide to remove the teak? finally where are you located? i dont see snow.....

[Despacio]

I'm in Southern California, it's summer here. Upper 70's, and dry. Actually too hot for all this hard work.

I decided to remove the teak because I removed that one corner to find my leak. When I went to replace that one piece I removed four more that had water under them. I then realized that most of my teak wasn't stuck to the deck and replacing those four pieces would be as hard as removing the whole deck. That adhesive is well beyond it's effective life of 20 years.

I only found one small part of the deck that was glued down, an obvious repair in the not too distant past.

Here's what I'm doing:
Pry up the teak, toss it in the trash (it's a good 3/8 thick and in good condition.)
Scrape off what can of the adhesive with a razor blade scraper. Hard work, but it comes off fairly easily.
Sand with a random orbit sander (80 grit) to remove most of the rest of the black adhesive.
Fill holes with West Epoxy and 404 thickener with a syringe.
Sand again to remove the excess filer and the rest of the black adhesive.

The fiberglass decks look GREAT! I have the foredeck and the aft deck complete, just the side decks left. I found a couple of interesting problems I am very glad I found, that will make my life easier in the future. See my leak thread for more on that.

Now to figure out what to do about nonskid.

I have a free aft hatch that I rebuilt last year.

[Despacio]

All of my teak deck has now been removed. A nicely molded fiberglass deck was under the teak.

I looked at a bunch of boats that had the teak removed to see what the next step is. There is a guy who does some high quality painting in the slip here and I looked at his work. He ain't cheap, but his work looks like a factory original deck.

He's going to add a layer of fiberglass mat with West epoxy, fill, fair, paint, and add the non skid using Awl Grip. He's charging $4,000 and says it will take him two weeks, seven days a week to do the job. The added glass isn't for strength, it's to insure all of the holes are permanently taken care of.

I could spend half that with several other people, or I could do it myself. This guy said all the right things and has lots of very nice looking jobs behind him, so I'm going with him.

I'll post some photos of the work and the complete job if anyone wants to see it.

[jakevr]

holy shit. 4k?!?!?! do it yourself

[jleonard]

I agree. Flat deck work is easy, especially if you are going to use non skid for a finish.

[Despacio]

holy shit. 4k?!?!?! do it yourself

While I could do it I know I'd be far better off having it done, I know my limitations. I looked at a bunch of boats and you can really see the difference between amateur and professional decks.

The other estimates were not much less, except this guy is glassing the decks which is worth a grand easy. He said the filled holes might break loose with the summer heat on the deck and I'll always have leak issues. The point of this is to never have a leak again.

I'm glad he's glassing the decks, and I'm glad I'm not.

[Despacio]

Teak stripped off, one layer of fiberglass mat with West epoxy, and the first layer of "Awlgrip" fairing compound.

[Despacio]

Decks are now faired, cabin faired and primed, lots more sanding, then paint, maybe in two days. Non skid to be a light sand color. I can't wait to get back to normal.

[Boatmon]

WOW, and on the water too! what do your neighbors think about that? I guess I didn't realize (may have missed it) that you were painting the cabin and brow too. Cabin going to be close to original? May I ask what paint you are using? That may be one of next winter's projects for us.