Replacing teak toe rails

[Roy I. Olsen]

I am forced to replace the teak toe rails on INTERIM my Pearson 360 due to Katrina. I would appreciate any words of wisdom.

[eyschulman]

Teak looks good and will last a long time if done right-several new boats some high quality are using umi ( white or black starboard type product)- read easy to work with and install , no splitting and no maintenance.

[Pblais]

Replacing toe rails is not for an amature. Forming wood to three dimensions is not a skill you duplicate on the first trip. Sorry, this really is not easy.

[Roy I. Olsen]

Pblas, I appreciate what you say. I've 30 years of construction with 20 years of Trim and cabinet work. If anybody has done this before and has any tricks or oops that I can learn from I would like to hear them. No use reinventing the wheel.
Roy

[oldsalt_1942]

The bedding of the new toe rail and it's fastenings is of vital importance. I've been involved in several projects of this kind having spent a dozen years working in boat yards.

First of all, DONT bed it with 5200 or a similar product!!! 5200 and Sikaflex are ADHESIVES. The stuff will NEVER come up again without massive destruction of the wood and the gel coat and glass beneath.

Use a polysulfide caulking like 3M's 101. Use plenty of it under the toe rail where it meets the deck and under and around the bolts.

When it comes time to tighten the fasteners DON'T tighten them as hard as you can. When you do that you squeeze all the caulking out leaving only a paper-thin seal beneath the rail and the deck. Tighten the bolts only to the point where the caulking starts to ooze out evenly all around the bonding surface. NOW STOP! Clean everything up and go on to another project for several days. You want the caulk to cure. Go back a week later and tighten up all the bolts and put in your bungs. By waiting for the caulking to cure you are, in effect, creating a gasket which is needed to prevent leaks.

I don't envy you your job.

[delmarrey]

Roy,

I'm not replacing, but will be adding.

At the present I have metal toerails/T-tracks that over lap my deck-to-hull joint. After almost 30 years she seems to seep a little on the windy/rainy days.

So my plan it to pull the metal, re-install the fasteners, fill and glass over it all. Then add a mahogany (1" X 2") water board (toerail) with a new T-track on top, staggering the fasteners between the old ones.

This should give it new strength, keep'r water tight and create a stronger base for the safety line stanchions, if you know what I mean!

I plan to to laminate 3/8" wide X 3/4" tall strips with DAP® Weldwood Resorcinol Glue (waterproof & stronger then epoxy) the shape of the curvature of the hull, then laminate another 1/4" on top of that horizontally and radius the top edges to fair it in.

I could lacquer or paint the wood but I can glass over that too. I haven't decided yet.

The problem with teak is it's hard to glue and to keep lacquer or paint on it.

Some pictures of your old rail would help! That would give us a better idea of your set up and how we can make suggestions.

[oldsalt_1942]

Removing and reinstalling or putting in new, the bedding advice still stands. Don't squeeze out all your caulking without waiting for it to fully cure.