Bleaching/lightening teak.

[Quandary]

It has started raining so I decided to stay indoors and make a shelf for spectacles, binos etc to run across the bulkhead above the chart table. The teak boards I have were purchased as a teak baulk to fit out an Achilles way back in the early seventies and have been stored since. The colour is still much darker than the teak woodwork inside the boat which also has a slightly reddish tinge under a very high gloss. Planing and sanding will help a bit but once varnish is applied it will look dark against the bulkhead it will be screwed to.
Is it possible to lighten the surface colour of the wood with chemicals so that I can use light stain to get a colour match or should I varnish it and the expose it to strong sunshine (in Scotland????) for a few days.
Boatbuilders seem to be able to do it for even new boats seem to be a lighter tone than the wood I have.

 

[rob2]

Sounds like you have some old growth teak. It will be finer grained and darker than the plantaion wood used in new builds. It may bleach successfully - you'll have to experiment on an offcut. If not, you'll have to make a feature of the difference!

Rob.

 

[Billyo]

I used wessex two part teak cleaner on my toe and hand rail with dramatic results. If your teak doesn't need cleaning then just buy the second part as they are expensive. Can't remember which colour is the cleaner and which the brightener, but google it and it's all explained.

Also it goes a long way so you probably want the smallest avaliable bottle.

 

[superheat6k]

Red is the first part acidic cleaner, Green is the neutraliser that lightens up the colour.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Red is the first part acidic cleaner, Green is the neutraliser that lightens up the colour.

I got quite confused when I bought my second batch of Wessex cleaner as the colours had been reversed, meaning I now have some red and green cleaner, as well as some red and green neutraliser!!

 

[gjgm]

Oxalic acid is pretty cheap if you want to try that, try ebay. I was lectured by some specialist to stop using these two part aggressive cleaners on teak and use Owaltrol. Actually, the results were pretty good. Not cheaper though !