Cetol

[casual]

For tickles and Grins,I,will tell all about my experience with Cetol,since I,have read every post regarding teak refinishing.
After cleaning and sanding my cap rail following instruction to a T,Iproceede with Cetol Light 3 coats followed with 2 coats of clear,just finished today total time 5 days for the Cetol application,this was on a30 yr old boat with original teak that was in deplorable condition I,mean Bad.
After cleaning and sanding the entire cetol application took 5 day's was easy to apply and looks Great,as good as any varnish I,heve ever used.
Just hope it holds up.

[Bloodhound]

Thanks for the input. I finally sprang for Cetol myself 3 weeks ago after trying several other approaches including regular oiling with teak oil, and just as regular cleaning with Tilex and a Soft Scrubb pad. The Cetol looks great but, of course, the test is how it looks after 3 months in the blazing sun.

[rebel heart]

I have Cetol in a few areas and it's held up remarkably well. I'm actually going to use some more since they have the new color that doesn't look like amber. Regarding it standing up in the tropics, it's not like varnish does a great job of that either. I've bit the bullet and my wife is building a nearly full-boat canopy to keep the sun from heating the (teak) decks and roasting all of the brightwork. Huge chunk of material to haul around but the temperature difference with the canopy on is huge. The brightwork will essentially last forever if it's only seeing direct sun for the average of 10-20% of time the boat is underway.

[roverhi]

There is no way you can say Cetol looks as good as varnish. About the best thing you can say about it is it looks like thinned orange paint. Just used it on a few wood pads because I'm sick of keeping up with varnish. I was very tempted to sand off the first coat cause it looked like crap. 2nd coat was crappier and 3rd coat crappiest. Hopefully it will hold up better than varnish and the thought of no sanding for recoat has benefits.

[Astral Blue]

I swear by Cetol. My first application consisted of sanding everything down and applying 4 coats. It lasted two seasons; and my boat was kept in an uncovered slip and took the beating of the two summers worth of California Delta sun. After the end of the second season, I applied two more coats; and now I'm on my second season after the second application. I can't sing these praises about varnish. I would need to apply multiple coats of varnish every season; and when I moved my boat out of the uncovered slip and into the sun, the frequency of varnish applications increased.

The only thing I regret about Cetol is that I didn't come across it earlier.

[sv Winterlude]

We used Cetol for 10 years on our almost 30 year old Passport 37. We cruised for 6 of those 10 years in the Western Caribbean -- mostly Guatemala/Honduras/Panama/Columbia -- i.e. serious tropics. Cetol required a minimum 2 coats every six months (we used clear for these coats). It looked good, almost as good as varnish. In fact, lots of folks mistakenly thought it was varnish.

When we had mold under the cetol yet again, I decided to test varnish. So far so good -- two years and we still do 2 additional coats every six months ... BUT the varnish does look nicer than the cetol ever did, I just never wanted to admit it. And so far it's the same amount of work - we always used a scrubby pad on the cetol between coats and a light sanding for the varnish doesn't add any extra time ... I could change my mind in another year, but so far, so good.

There's a series of posts on our adventures in switching to varnish on my blog at: Teak Week: Day 5: FINALLY, The Varnish! | Commuter Cruiser

[cgrabens]

We will be giving cetol a go on our new-to-us 1984 aloha 34. Hopefully I will have a success story and some pics, but I have a quick question in the meantime... Does cetol stain fiberglass at all? I tend to make plenty of messes, just wondering if it'd be a good idea to take some extra precautions so I don't stain the whole boat.

[sv Winterlude]

I never had Cetol "stain" the fiberglass -- but it's the same as varnish as far as getting drips on the fiberglass. We use blue tape ... and I carry a rag to wipe up drips immediately.

Just for everyone's info -- I initially posted the switching from Cetol to varnish post three years ago. We used Cetol in the Western Caribbean and switched to varnish back in SW FLorida -- 2 coats every six months, doesn't matter if it's Cetol or varnish in our experience. My Cetol looked "almost" as good as varnish, everyone wants to know who does our brightwork with the varnish -- and there's NO WAY we'd ever consider doing varnish for anyone else -- too much work -- and so was Cetol.

If you want it to look good, it'll take alot of work. Pick your poison. The boat across the dock from us just decided to let it go silver au natural -- a Pacific Seacraft 37. It's looking good, but I still like the mirror finish on the varnish. For more teak info, click here: Teak Step By Step

[neworleansrich]

My theory on Cetol:

Cetol does not approximate varnish. It does not look as good and may not even last as long....However because Cetol does not look as good as varnish from the start, and your expectations are lower, you are not as worried when it fails. In fact, you may even consider recoating over failed Cetol. I mean, what the heck...It didn't look that good when I started.

Varnish where you can cover the wood with Sunbrella. Cetol elsewhere.

[DSDman]

Use starbright tropical teak oil...its better.

Sent from my XT1030 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by cgrabens

We will be giving cetol a go on our new-to-us 1984 aloha 34. Hopefully I will have a success story and some pics, but I have a quick question in the meantime... Does cetol stain fiberglass at all? I tend to make plenty of messes, just wondering if it'd be a good idea to take some extra precautions so I don't stain the whole boat.

If you dribble Cetol on fiberglass, it's nearly impossible to get off! I haven't found anything that takes it off after it dries.

[cgrabens]

Thanks for the advice. Taped around the edges and used a smaller brush so I didn't make too bad of mess here is a before and after (one coat of marine cetol). We plan on doing two coats of cetol, two coats of gloss but I am so pleased with the results thus far.