Sanding Teak

[motion30]

I need to strip the ceatol from my teak I have a large amount to strip The ceatol did not hold up for me I plan to use marine varinsh Anyway what grit paper should I use on my palm sander? I was thinking 80 for rough and 220 for finish

[capngeo]

Start out with a Carbide Paint Scraper then sand with 80, 180, 220... Wipe with acetone, tack cloth, then varnish. Of all the high end varnishes, I've found plain old Minwax Spar Varnish works as well as any and is not stooooopid expensive


Oh yeah... buy yourself the best brush you can find!

[roverhi]

Use a heat gun with the scraper, finish with as fine a grit that gets the job done. Everytime you sand, you remove a little wood. Over the years, you could end up with paper thin teak and need to spend big bucks to have it replaced.

[capngeo]

Cetol is real soft.. not much of a need for heat unless in a real difficult spot...

+1 on the don't sand too much!

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Use a heat gun with the scraper, finish with as fine a grit that gets the job done. Everytime you sand, you remove a little wood. Over the years, you could end up with paper thin teak and need to spend big bucks to have it replaced.

+1

The previous owner on my boat put cetol all over the decks. HORRIBLE idea, and I was the schmuck who got to spend a week with a heatgun and scraper. It gets into the grooves and two years later I'm still knocking little chunks off that managed to lay down in the grains.

Heatgun, scraper, on your knees, lots of time. No way around it. Even if you tried to sand it you'd burn through sanding pads every 30 seconds as it gums up the pad.

[rebel heart]

Some good pictures:

Rebel Heart - Sailing, cruising, liveaboard blog and website - Eric's Blog - Scraping cetol off the decks is fun fun*fun

[PAR]

I agree in that heat isn't necessary on Cetol, just scrape and cuss. Round the corners on the scraper so you don't dig in. Also MinWax's products absolutely suck in the marine environment. The product listed above isn't a varnish, but in fact is a single part polyurethane (check the label folks) and not a very good one on boats. It works well on your front door at the house (what I used), but it can't handle moisture content cycling or much wood (joint) movement from environmental cycling. It does have a reasonable UV inhibitor count, but tends to peel in fairly wet or damp locations. You get what you pay for generally with clear wood coatings. If looking for good clear coating preformance, particularly in hostile environments (like Florida) try Bristol Finish. It's a two part polyurethane and good stuff. Yep, it cost a bit more then the hardware store stuff, but it will easily out preform it too. Use Epifianes Clear Gloss varnish if you want a single part regular alkyd coating with good preformance.

[matauwhi]

G'day, Mate. Your getting good advice above in getting the cetol off and PAR has some good insights on making sure you use marine varnish and not polyureathanes. We have found that the two part varnish systems will give you a slightly harder finish, but are also a little harder to repair chips if you get a "ding" than the single part ones. We having been having success using a green scuff pad between coats instead of 220 grit and also using a good quality foam brush. Cheers.

[IdoraKeeper]

Originally Posted by matauwhi

G'day, Mate. Your getting good advice above in getting the cetol off and PAR has some good insights on making sure you use marine varnish and not polyureathanes. We have found that the two part varnish systems will give you a slightly harder finish, but are also a little harder to repair chips if you get a "ding" than the single part ones. We having been having success using a green scuff pad between coats instead of 220 grit and also using a good quality foam brush. Cheers.

That is what I want to see on Idora. Nice finish... How many coats was that? I like the scuff pads too. This year I am trying my luck at repairing some spots to get them through the winter. Have you tried this or do you go for a clean start everytime?

[matauwhi]

G'day, Idorakeeper. Thanks. The cockpit was 15 coats. We had the opportunity to be inside a shed for a few months and decided to take all the varnish off. After over 12 years of just maintenance coats it was still in good shape, but the opportunity was there. We used a heat gun to do the strtipping.

When we do get a "ding", we just sand around the area and put on enough patches to try back level with the surrounding surface. Then we just do the entire area when the maintenance coats are needed.

Hope that helps. Cheers.

[CharlieCobra]

I use Captain's on my projects. I would use the French one but it's difficult to get. The key is enough coats during the initial varnishing to get a good UV barrier. MINIMUM 10 coats.