Teak Deck Caulk everywhere!

[xeon_tsd]

The black caulking on our teak decks gets everywhere.. feet, clothes, fiberglass from our feet and clothes, etc. I do not know what was used last as I did not own the boat at the time.. is there something I can do to stop this? Some way to "seal" the caulking so that it stops making everything black?

[colemj]

The caulk is uncured?

Mark

[roverhi]

Someone used the wrong kind of caulk. The solution will probably be remove all of it. Have you tried any solvents on it?? If paint thinner dissolves it, it's probably butyl. Suppose if they used a tar based caulk, paint thinner would also dissolve that. I'd seriously try and get hold of the PO and find out what this SPOT is. removing the caulk is going to be a bear as you will have to get it all out of the seams for the new caulk to bond with the teak. If you can't clean out the seams, you may have to lay down battens and use a circular saw to slidely widen and deepen them. Don't envy you have to do this job.

[Cheechako]

Arghh... that sounds bad. maybe someone used Polysulphide or something like that.

[the_alpine]

I had a tube of Dow Corning 795 do that. Turns out it was expired and never did cure properly. Had to remove it all and do over.


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[btrayfors]

Had this happen to me in the Caribbean about 15 years ago. There was no solution, except to remove all the caulking.

While we were at it, we removed the teak decks, too! Put down a couple of layers of fiberglass cloth over the existing fiberglass decks which were under the removed teak to cover the hundreds of screw holes, then 8 coats of Awlgrip, including one coat of non-skid. Done professionally, with a master shipright supervising. Came out beautiful. End of problem. Cabin was much cooler, too, without the teak decks!

Bill

[roverhi]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Arghh... that sounds bad. maybe someone used Polysulphide or something like that.

You must be using something other than polysulfide. Polysulfide, LifeCaulk, 3M 101, cures to a npn sticky rubber like material. Staying permanently sticky is not in its vocabulary. Have been using LifeCaulk since the last millenium and never had a problem with it. Polysulfide was the go to caulk for teak decks for many years though understand there are better formulations for that now.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by colemj

The caulk is uncured?

Mark

If that is the case you are screwed. There is no way to catalyze caulk after the fact. Even if you could smear straight catalist on the surface it wouldn't work, it's to late. It needs to be in the mix, not just on the surface.
However if I were to guess, somebody probably used a cheap un-catalized caulk and the uv has ruined it.
Kind of old school, tar deck seams and all

[Sailor647]

If you decided to replace the caulking, there are 29 photos (including a before and after) on our Facebook page (SV Shameless) of the process we used to replace the caulking. We used TDS Teak Decking Systems caulk from Jamestown Distributors. Used about a full case (12 tubes) for our 40 foot boat.
Go to Photos, then Albums. Click on Teak Deck Repair. The photos are in order.
Best of luck!

[Nicholson58]

If you have to dig the calk out, there is a power tool that might work. Fein multi-master has an available attachment specifically for digging out teak joints. found one here.


Fein MultiMaster Teak Blades for Boat Deck Repair

[meirriba]

It seems to me that your only way is to remove and replace.
By the way - a friend of mine encountered same issue on a new Bavaria several years back. Bavaria took the responsibility as a warranty issue. At start they have tried to repair the caulking but realized that it needs to be re-done from sctatch.

[GordMay]

Thanks to Andina Marie:

“... It has been reported and attested to by polysulfide manufacturers that some wood treatment finishes, in particular CETOL, can in fact cause the polysulfide to emulsify back to a black sticky mess. The process is slow, taking a number of months so be very careful what solvents and chemicals get on your seams. There is no warning on the CETOL product about this so be warned. It was also reported that the newer materials reported in the UPDATE below did not suffer this degredation...”

➥ How to maintain and caulk teak decks on boats.
➥ How to maintain and caulk teak decks on boats.