New Cabin Sole

[Duncan]

I took up the old teak parquet rec-room flooring on my cabin sole. Now I'm down to the painted plywood. My preference is to apply a sheet of laminated teak sole - any experienced guidance. e.g. selection, preparation of the subfloor, preferred adhesives, etc.?

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[By Invitation]

Personal recommendation - West system for your adhesive, it will never fail. Ultimate Sole for the finish! - no question.

Scott
S/V Invitation
Cheoy Lee 41

[irwinsailor]

Are you sure gluing it down is a good idea? I have teak and holly that is screwed down and it had been handy to be able to remove the sole for repairs and also for refinishing.

[delmarrey]

I would agree with both, except with a wet bilge or humid inviroment. A screwed down section may tend to warp or buckle.
And may even cause a dryrot between the layers.

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[By Invitation]

My suggestion to using West as the adhesive was only intended for areas where you need a good adhesive. I agree with Gunner that I would never limit access to anything by gluing down any section of the sole. Screw all panels using straight slotted scews not phillips. I use phillips everywhere on the boat but not on the sole. After years of walking on it, possibly re-varnishing it, try to remove a phillips head screw full of crap ! With a straight slotted screw it takes 2 seconds to clean out the slot and remove the screw.

Scott

[Alan Wheeler]

I wouldn't use any epoxies at all. Use one of those new generation polymer thingies. Like Sikaflex, or the new versions of that stuff. Epoxy is hard, thus brittle and struggles to have a long term hold on Teak. The flexible adhesives will "move" with the timber, provide a better sound dampning effect and last much longer at holding the timber.
The other point is, where ever I need to lift the floor, it is better to make a hatch with the flooring. Lay the floor with a marine ply first. Then lay the Teak on top of that. Where ever you need to gain entrance to the lower area's of hull, cut and make a hatch out of the Teak/Ply laminate. This also means you can get away with a much thinner Teak strip and as Teak is like Gold, that has to be good.

[Duncan]

There are only two areas where I have hatches through the (marine ply) subfloor, so those will be covered with separate pieces. As a combination of suggestions here, I'll look at gluing together a lamination that I could screw down, and put Ultimate Sole on it.
Thanks for the advice - this will be a vast improvement over the old stuff that was there!

[Alan Wheeler]

You can never have to many access points to under a floor.
But while you do have the floor up, it would be a great time to fit some things in to make life easier int he future, if you are going to seal down the floor. Put some large plastic conduits through, to allow you to draw cables at a later date. Why on earth manufacturers don't put a cable channel down the middle of the vessel when building the thing I just don't know. It would be simple and make life so much easier in the future. Opps, calm down, count to 10. OK, so you can see what I have been doing this weekend.

[GordMay]

If there’s any “hidden” stringers between the floor hatches, you should make provision for cleaning the limber holes. A length of small stuff (or chain), c/w strategically placed knots can be “sawed” back & forth to clear debris from the drainage channels.

[Duncan]

Alan, what I was trying to say was that I'm thinking of gluing a thinner teak and holly veneer to a substrate (1/4" marine ply?). (I may find that it comes that way, anyway, but I haven't checked lately.)
This would then sit on the existing marine ply subfloor.
Thanks to your comment, though, I'm now thinking of cutting this in sections, like a series of larger hatches, and fastening them in a way that would make it easy to get them up again. This will eliminate fiddling with small access cutouts and hatches over them, and provide unrestricted access to the bilges.
I have shallow bilges and great respect for Murphy, so I don't think I'll route anything new where it might get wet, but this way, all the options (and the access) stay open.
Thanks, too, Gord re: clearing things out - I did notice some crud in one spot, and hadn't thought to check if it had blocked any channels.