Rub rail question / plastic lumber

[Bill Balme]

I definitely like having our rub rail - which is mysteriously in need of repair! ;-)

Another route to consider - I've not done it but seen it - and think it looks good - is to hang a very thick (2+") rope along the top of the topsides. The one I saw looked very traditional - appeared to be old hemp type rope, but was in fact a modern synthetic rope of some description.

[svPearlLee]

Why not replace both with plastic wood? The lower rail may help if you're ever in a situation where the dock or wall is lower than the upper rail. A friend has plastic wood rub rails on his 40' Bristol. From 20 feet away you wouldn't know it, but they're much tougher than any wood rails, and no maintenance.

[George DuBose]

Skylark my Pearson 36-1 is having teak and stainless half round rubrails installed this spring. Any thoughts on what would be the best sealant to bed the first layer of teak to the hull with.

...and "No" I am not going to use 5200.

I have heard good things about Pantera, but can't seem to find any real specs on it.

Thanks.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by JMK

Thanks for the feedback. The PO painted the teak with white paint that is now peeling which is why I enterained the thought about just removing them. One problem I have noticed on the Gulfstar 44 is that access to almost anything on the deck or hull is hidden behind a maze of joinerwork.Looks nice, but a pain. I haven't checked how many of the rub rail fasteners are thru-bolted or just screwed into the hull, but that will be on my list as I keep considering my options. The toipsides needed painting anyway, which was also one of the reasons I was thinking of removing them, but there certainly is that arguement for the protection they provide.

Any source for the PVC rubrails? Still on the hunt for low maintenance if I do keep them.

J.M.

Pgs 269-274 Hamilton Marine

Hamilton Marine Online Virtual Catalog: Page 269

[capt jgw]

I replaced my hand rails with Plasteak which I liked. Doesn't look like teak wood up close but from ten feet it's pretty good. I wouldn't use out for rub rails though, it's pretty soft and gouges easily. Composite porch deck material like Trex would be great though. Hard as hell, almost bullet proof, and the color goes all the way through.
You have to predrill the screw holes or you'll break the screws. Cut edges don't look the same as the factory edges, but put the cuts on the bottom and you won't see them. Should hold up very nicely. Quite expensive, but probably cheaper than real teak.

[Zach]

It works... You can do it with Trex, but you have to use a lot of screws. A lot of folks try to treat it like wood and set the screws once every 10 inches or so. That isn't quite close enough and if you catch a piling just right you'll lose a chunk of plastic rub rail.

My preference is for one of barbour marine's plastic extruded rub rail profiles... It is tough, and slippery in ways that you have to lay up on a piling to fully understand.

Zach

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by George DuBose

Skylark my Pearson 36-1 is having teak and stainless half round rubrails installed this spring. Any thoughts on what would be the best sealant to bed the first layer of teak to the hull with.

...and "No" I am not going to use 5200.

I have heard good things about Pantera, but can't seem to find any real specs on it.

Thanks.

5200 doesn't flex very much--it's more a straight on glue and costs quite a bit more than other good products for this application. You might consider a Sitkaflex (spellng?) product. Tremco is the company that produces the Sitkaflex line but for the construction industry. Silicon-modified Polyurethane is what you're looking for in terms of a good material for elasticity and stickiness for a bedding application. Having said that, many of these products are meant to be protected from the sun (painted) and don't have good UV resist properties on their own. There's a nice shop in San Diego called "Sunshine Supply" that can advise and provide a good product for the intended environment.

We bedded our covering boards, winches, and various deckpads with a couple different Tremco products (2008 timeframe) and are, so far, happy but time will tell about longevity. We have varnished covering boards and make sure the varnish extends onto the line of bedding that can be seen. Other pads are painted so the bedding is covered with paint.

Fair winds,
Brenda

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by Tayana42

In images of Gulfstar 44 I found online some have the lower rub rail and some not. The boat looks right both ways. That said, I like having a stout rub rail on my boat. Not only for protection, which I hope I never need, but also because it keeps the boat dryer knocking down much of the wave and spray.


S/V B'Shert

Like you, we've noted how much water is deflected away from the boat by the rubrail. In our case, covering board does little--it is the hefty rub rail about 15" below the covering board that deflects water and damage from the boat. Our rub rail is a huge composite thing--mid-ships it sticks out from the boat about 6" on each side (yes, very thick) and tapers down to about 2" at the bow and stern.

"Composite" it was originally wood (oak) with a bronze quarter oval rail on the outer edge. The quarter oval rail had "pinked" over the years of exposure to salt water and needed to be replaced. The oak had also rotted in a few places. We laminated a mahogany rub rail to replace the oak but then when we discovered that it would be well over $2K in materials to get the 1.5" quarter oval bronze, we "temporarily" put a couple hundred dollars of 1.5" black pvc quarter round (no quarter oval available) in its place. We made the purchase from Hamilton Marine and used a product that is commonly used for rub rails.

From a "looks" perspective, the (painted) wood part is so much larger than the PVC part that the PVC is not really noticed. From a damage/wear perspective, the PVC is just so-so. We've got a lot of "other" things to put our money into rather than $2K of bronze for the rub rail, so the PVC will have to do for us for now. We may eventually replace the PVC with IPE (a very dense wood) if bronze stays out of the budget. Black PVC turns grey--you have to use a protectant "back to black" type product to keep it looking good. More hassle than expected as well.

There are a couple of pics of our schooner here on this page and you can see the lower rub rail in some.

Painted wood rubrail -- I did ours in 2008 and just redid it last month because the dark paint was starting to have that oxidized look. Sanding the (much larger than most folks would have) rail took 4 hrs. Painting 2 coats took a total of about 4 hours. So, 8 hrs total in 7 yrs and totally happy with the look of it.

I've spent 1-2 hours every 6 months cleaning and applying back-to-black (3M) on the PVC part of the rubrail and I'm only happy with how it looks for about 1 month after the application. So (1.5 hrs x 2/year) x 7 years = 21 hrs of maintenance for something I'm not really happy with.

[Greenhand]

While I think the plastic lumber, PlasTeak, or any of the alternatives would work well as a rubrail, I have seen many vessels where users also use that lower rub rail as a step when going to and from the dock. I am not sure it would be strong enough to use for that secondary purpose, at least not without reinforcement.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by Greenhand

While I think the plastic lumber, PlasTeak, or any of the alternatives would work well as a rubrail, I have seen many vessels where users also use that lower rub rail as a step when going to and from the dock. I am not sure it would be strong enough to use for that secondary purpose, at least not without reinforcement.

That's what I liked about the plastic rub rail I got from Barbour Plastics. There was an edge I could get my foot on.

[Captain Bill 3]

Taco Marine has many suitable extrusions

[Nicholson58]

Ours is a 1984 Camper & Nicholson 58 with 3-1/2 wide X 2-1/2 tall trapezoid cross section spalsh. Port side was lost in IVAN by the PO. We've been contemplating a replacement for several years with lots of other important items also in line. I seriously look forward to getting it replaced. It does keep the splash lower and keep the damage down.

I tried a plastic facsimile but was unable to make it work. Even cut to shape, it curled uncontrollably from residual internals stresses. In that section, it was too stiff and unworkable. I had to throw it all out.


I finally found Jarah planks I could cut to the cross section and hull curve. I used an electric hand plane for final shaping. Its tough to attach because many of the original nuts embedded in the hull were loose, lost or damaged. I am embedding threaded anchors (M10) between the inner an outer hull skins using Marine Tex and filled epoxy. The final outer edge gets a solid SS 1" half-round. I also used the Jarah for the toe rail 1-1/4" x 3-1/2" cut to the curve. The splash is about 18 inches below the toe rail. Jarah is ridiculously hard and dense.


I have many boat neighbors who have used various plastic lumber but at 35 tons, we would crush the stuff. (See Maggie O'Katie- plastic rails & splash.)

[Schooner Chandlery]

Nicholson58, yours sounds like ours--the original steam bent oak was a single thickness of wood--huge. I think they bent it in place and then shaped it. But on replacing it, we laminated 3 layers of mahogany and they were thru bolted to a 2x8 plank that runs inside the (wooden boat's) frames. Very stout. Your wood sounds like IPE wood.

[deblen]

Originally Posted by Schooner Chandlery

Like you, we've noted how much water is deflected away from the boat by the rubrail. In our case, covering board does little--it is the hefty rub rail about 15" below the covering board that deflects water and damage from the boat. Our rub rail is a huge composite thing--mid-ships it sticks out from the boat about 6" on each side (yes, very thick) and tapers down to about 2" at the bow and stern.

"Composite" it was originally wood (oak) with a bronze quarter oval rail on the outer edge. The quarter oval rail had "pinked" over the years of exposure to salt water and needed to be replaced. The oak had also rotted in a few places. We laminated a mahogany rub rail to replace the oak but then when we discovered that it would be well over $2K in materials to get the 1.5" quarter oval bronze, we "temporarily" put a couple hundred dollars of 1.5" black pvc quarter round (no quarter oval available) in its place. We made the purchase from Hamilton Marine and used a product that is commonly used for rub rails.

From a "looks" perspective, the (painted) wood part is so much larger than the PVC part that the PVC is not really noticed. From a damage/wear perspective, the PVC is just so-so. We've got a lot of "other" things to put our money into rather than $2K of bronze for the rub rail, so the PVC will have to do for us for now. We may eventually replace the PVC with IPE (a very dense wood) if bronze stays out of the budget. Black PVC turns grey--you have to use a protectant "back to black" type product to keep it looking good. More hassle than expected as well.

There are a couple of pics of our schooner here on this page and you can see the lower rub rail in some.

Painted wood rubrail -- I did ours in 2008 and just redid it last month because the dark paint was starting to have that oxidized look. Sanding the (much larger than most folks would have) rail took 4 hrs. Painting 2 coats took a total of about 4 hours. So, 8 hrs total in 7 yrs and totally happy with the look of it.

I've spent 1-2 hours every 6 months cleaning and applying back-to-black (3M) on the PVC part of the rubrail and I'm only happy with how it looks for about 1 month after the application. So (1.5 hrs x 2/year) x 7 years = 21 hrs of maintenance for something I'm not really happy with.

Have you tried Armour-All on the PVC? It works for a time on automotive plastics. Just a thought. / len

[bigdog5]

Hi Bill,I am keen on the rope around rubbing strip idea.Any thoughts on how to hang it on an existing wood strip?Thanks Dave.