Teak Decks

[Sandero]

I am curious about the no screw glue down installation of a teak deck.

since decks have camber and the pattern follows the curve of the toe rail, gunwhale or edge of the deck how are these curved pieces in the dimension held in place, forced in place until they epoxy sets?

I certainly can understand glueing down a strip with not tension, such as bending it... straight and flat as one might on a floor in a room. But we all know that there is nothing straight or flat when it comes to boats, except the sole.

Can someone describe how epoxy laid teak decks are done?

[goboatingnow]

I was at Halberg Rassys open day in orust 3 years ago and they give great tours of teh factory. I was able to watch and ask questions to the guy actually laying solid teak decks ( in fact he even took up and replaced pieces to show me how they did it).

They had two methods. On smaller boats they seemed to drill holes and screw and stick ( with sika flex) the boards down. They tend put in bungs, so this method is the "traditional" method leaving hundreds of fasteners in the glass fibre deck.

The other method was to use a number of "holddown" fastners, placed in the cauling seam of the deck as they laid it. These were then removed an filled with polyurethane sealant. This still leaves lots of holes that are then filled. I dont beleive you could lay a complete deck without some holddown holes and in fact, quite a lot of holddowns.


The HR guy did not reccomend epoxy as he felt there was not enough "give" and expoxy dont really bound well with oily teak. He reccomended a polyurethane adhesive with a " bonding catalyst" for teak

I subsequently laid a rear deck, mostly flat and mostly rectangular ( mostly!!). i was determined not to use any "holddown" screws. I did manage to do it but never again. Trying to constrain and hold teak using only weights while the adhesive sets was incredably hard and nearly defeated me. It worked, looked great and never budged in 10 years, but boy was it hard.

[donradcliffe]

Attached is a photo of the guys in Phuket laying teak. They used crossbeams stuck through the toerail on one end and with water jugs on top, then put wedges between the crossbeam and the top of each teak strip to hold it down for 24 hours while the sikaflex set up. Started at the toe rail, and did 2-3 strips a day. They did use one screw at the inner end of each cross strip like the one near the hammer, which was used to bend the strips toward the toerail, and the cross strip was shortened after each set of longitudinal strips was laid. That screw hole was filled before the inner strip was laid.

In the picture, they are getting ready to glue down a large trim piece around the hatch.

[Sandero]

Am to understand that in order to lay an adhesive only teak deck that the installer relies on weights and wedges etc. to force the wood to conform to the curve and camber? And then wait 24 hrs or so for the adhesive to properly set up before going on to the next piece?

If that is the method, it would be an insanely long and difficult process, especially to get enough "clamping" pressure applied uniformly.

YIKES!

[boatsmith]

Some decks are straight laid and others have the planks sprung to follow the sheer. Straight laid decks are far easier to install. What we do to install sprung decks is clamp ,wedge and weight.
We take small blocks of plywood , about 2"x 3", the thickness of the teak planks being installed and super glue these to the sub deck. You can use hot melt glue but super glue works better. The technique is to apply glue to the block and spray the activator to the deck and then press the block down where you want it. With this method the glue is not as permanent and will bond in 2-3 seconds. Then when you want to remove it a sharp blow with a hammer will usually remove it. Or use a chisel bevel down and pop it off.
We tape the sides of the block with mylar packing tape to prevent epoxy from sticking to them.
For the first plank you glue the blocks down along the inner edge of where you want your plank. This means you are gluing in an area that will be under the next plank. We then use small clamps to pull this first plank tight to the blocks. After a dry fit we wipe the plank with denatured alcohol, then apply epoxy to the sub deck with notched plastic spreaders,
and install the plank.We use 25 lb bags of lead shot for weights.
It's very important to be meticulous cleaning up the squeezed out epoxy. We keep qt bottles of alcohol and boxes of paper rags and trash buckets handy. We also like the little black plastic mixing sticks that West Systems sells. The chisel end of these works well or cleaning and doesn't scratch.
If you need to glue a block down on a finished surface we put masking tape down first. This works well as the load is in sheer.
On subsequent planks we glue the blocks in far enough to allow f
or a small plywood wedge to push between the block and the plank to tighten up the seam. We make seam spacers of starboard as the epoxy doesn't stick. We always use epoxy to glue down decks and haven't had a problem on several hundred decks in over 10 years.
We also sometimes will super glue pieces of tongue depressors to the plans to hold the in position while the epoxy sets. We use the non-permanent method here and usually sand these off to avoid any damage to the teak surface.
Once you are in the rhythm you can actually glue down several planks at one go. Once you have planks glued down you then go to the other side o the boat and proceed there. We work mostly in south FL and we use fast epoxy so we can usually do 2 and sometimes three sets a day on each side o the boat.
The other method is to build the to a pattern upside down on a bench and then glue on a plywood or fiberglass skin to the bottom to hold the spring in the planks. The panels are then glued to the sub deck.
Sprung decks will cost about a third more than a straight laid deck because o the additional labor involved.
Hope this was clear enough and is o some value. David

[Sandero]

Great tutorial David. This is one project I wouldn't attempt on my own boat without experience.

If the teak planking (1/2"?) is applied over a GRP deck with a diamond non skid pattern do you have to sand the deck smooth for proper bond? Or does the epoxy gap fill and maintain its bond stregth?

[boatsmith]

It 's very important to properly prepare the sub deck prior to gluing down the teak. With a nonskid pattern we would grind most of that away with 24 grit sanding disks. Then we would vacuum and wipe the deck clean with denatured alcohol. You don't want any contaminates to interfere with the epoxy bond.

[donradcliffe]

As boatsmith said, you can do 2 or 3 planks a day on each side of the boat, so it's not too slow. The major difference was that the Thai's used Sika 298 as the adhesive. The Beneteau original deck was glued with Sika 298 AND screwed, and the adhesive bond was still excellent 20 years later--they took the old deck off with chisels and hammers, and the largest piece which came off whole was less than the size of my little finger. BTW, Beneteau glued directly over a dimond non-skid pattern.

The whole process took about 4 weeks in Thailand, but the Thai workers got paid less than $10/day...

[sailorboy1]

So it seems that an avergae cost for say a 40 footer from Boatsmith would help in this topic. Assume that the subdeck is kind.

[boatsmith]

I am not allowed to discuss prices on this forum, You may google me if you like . David

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by boatsmith

I am not allowed to discuss prices on this forum, You may google me if you like . David

Wasn't looking for a quote. Looked at your website and saw some nice pictures. I don't have teak decks which why I started this thread to just see what would be involved if were to get one with them. I wouldn't think answering a "general" question with a "general" answer is going be aganist any rules here.

[boatsmith]

Members who have a commercial interest in participating in our community will be identified as commercial vendors at our discretion. We enforce a very strict policy regarding solicitation of our membership by commercial participants.
Commercial vendors may not quote prices in any forum except the Vendors Forum.
Commercial vendors may not use any section of the forum except the Vendors Forum to discuss their products or services unless answering a direct question and even in this case vendors may not quote prices (unless in Vendors Forums).

Don Here are the rules. I am not approved as a commercial vendor. I have asked but have not recieved a response. David

[sailorboy1]

Mods it's time to weigh in here! Can a "general" cost to generasl question get posted??

[FrankZ]

Typically speaking we do not allow users with commercial interests to post advertisements or quotes. Boatsmith is more than welcome to PM you with the information you have requested.

It should also be stated that a member with commercial interests that does PM users with advertisements needs to understand that if these PMs are reported the moderation team views them in a similar light as if it was a publicly posted message.

We try to keep the forum as commercial free as possible. It really is amazing at times how much spam and other nonsense comes through here. Trying to keep out the spam is really the biggest job the moderation team faces.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by FrankZ

Typically speaking we do not allow users with commercial interests to post advertisements or quotes. Boatsmith is more than welcome to PM you with the information you have requested.

It should also be stated that a member with commercial interests that does PM users with advertisements needs to understand that if these PMs are reported the moderation team views them in a similar light as if it was a publicly posted message.

We try to keep the forum as commercial free as possible. It really is amazing at times how much spam and other nonsense comes through here. Trying to keep out the spam is really the biggest job the moderation team faces.

I agree that a true quote should not be posted. But remember I don't even have a boat with teak decks and started this as a way to get info for consideration. There have been posts on the thread from members with teak decks saying that vary from $4500 to $60000. So I don't feel this is a commerical response, just an "in general" for an expert.