Removing Teak Deck and Making Good on GRP

[glhotka]

We are just getting ready to start it on ours and planned on taking photos and videos of every step to post to our youtube channel for others to check out.
I pulled up about 1/3 of the teak deck this weekend and started filling screw holes. I also drilled a few 2" exploratory holes where the deck sounded like it might be rotted and I was shocked to see that we have hard wood planks as a core. It seems like it may be walnut but hard to tell.
Even in the spots that had that "thud" when tapping them the core while a bit damp was not rotted at all.
More to come as I dig into it even more.

https://www.youtube.com/c/svdreamcha...confirmation=1

[Cheechako]

Being a Formosa it's possible it is teak I suppose. If so, lucky you! On my Taiwan built boat, I had some wet core in the foredeck. I drilled small holes here and there from below, in cabinets and hanging lockers etc. Maybe 3/16" holes. Then I squeezed the core material from the drill bit between my thumb/fingers to tell if there was water in it or not. That way I determined the extent of wetness throughout the forepeak.

[leftbrainstuff]

We removed the teak deck and replaced it with dek king on our Liberty 458 last year.

We had no leaks and all screws from the original deck were in fiberglass.

We filled all 1536 holes with epoxy, removed a few flaking sections of gelcoat, repaired them and coated the entire deck with gluvit before the new deck went on.

Love the look of teak decks but teak screwed onto fiberglass is a less than well engineered interface.

It took about a month to remove the old deck and prep it, another month to install the new deck and about 6 weeks part time to rebed all fittings and penetrations.

Dek king is more flexible than teak so i had to spotface all attachment points. I used teflon / kevlar gaskets for all attachments with buttl on all threads. No leaks. All gaskets were slightly undersized to avoid gasket material showing.

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[rwlh1950]

I looked at a 1989 Jeanneau 42ft. The teak decking put me off as it needed removing. Thanks for the your report, I found it informative.


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[noblewarrior]

Is it necessary to remove all the deck hardware when removing teak decks and replacing with gelcoat and paint? It seams to me that cutting around them and leaving them in place would work. The gelcoat should secure the pads from moving!! Has anyone got an idea on this?

[Cheechako]

Better to remove it, but it can be done without, especially if you are painting in lieu of gel coating. If gel coating you might end up with flaking, depending on how much care is taken.

[noblewarrior]

I would have thought that gel coating around the remaining teak pads would keep them in place, the painting is just cosmetic. I don't understand what you mean by flaking? Is it the deteriation of the pad over time? I am planning to use Kiwi Grip, but I spoke to a guy some years ago that did a similiar job and he used an industrial floor paint that is used in warehoused. It is toughenough for fork lifts to use and he said it was made up of old car tyres finely shreaded making it very thick, thus it is also a leveling compound or filler.

[Pete7]

Always had gelcoat with sand on the dive boat, stood up well to the dive weights and cylinders being dropped and dragged about.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by noblewarrior

I would have thought that gel coating around the remaining teak pads would keep them in place, the painting is just cosmetic. I don't understand what you mean by flaking? Is it the deteriation of the pad over time? I am planning to use Kiwi Grip, but I spoke to a guy some years ago that did a similiar job and he used an industrial floor paint that is used in warehoused. It is toughenough for fork lifts to use and he said it was made up of old car tyres finely shreaded making it very thick, thus it is also a leveling compound or filler.

Yeah, the devil is in the detail for sure. Anything can work. Gel coat isn't that thick, unless someone does it sloppily. You certainly don't want gel coat "keeping them in place"! It's just that spraying and finishing gel, or anything, right up against a pad that has caulking may end up with gel etc overlapping the flexible caulk around the deck fitting. It then chips eventually where it flexes. That allows potential entry of moisture under the exposed edge of the gel. I did have the entire deck of one boat regelled in lieu of paint. It worked out pretty well. A lot of time was spent compounding and polishing to make it shine. Done again I would paint probably though. Both are better done with all the fitting off.
I used the Tuff Coat on a non boat project, very tuff stuff for sure, thick and big chunks of non skid in it. Not pretty on a rec boat I wouldn't think, but maybe with different non skid media It would be OK. Kiwi should work fine for you.

[noblewarrior]

I am not an expert on fiberglass, so maybe gelcoat is not what I should use. Under the teak deck is a layer of rough woven mat type material, what I would call raw fiberglass. I was thinking of sealing this with gelcoat and then painting it with the Kiwi or similiar. The boat is a Warrior 38.