Fabricating Teak deck panels

[rigpigpaul]

Hi All, I have a Beneteau 423 and I want to replace the teak on the aft deck and locker lids. I would like to make teak panels, ie gluing teak to a back board then gluing them into the recesses. I have been on you tube but not much there. I want to do the work away from the boat so there is no mess in the marina.
Questions---What type and minimum thickness of backing board would I need and what would be the minimum thickness of teak should I use. Any tips and web sites to look at will be much appreciated.
RPP.

 

[charles_reed]

Hi All, I have a Beneteau 423 and I want to replace the teak on the aft deck and locker lids. I would like to make teak panels, ie gluing teak to a back board then gluing them into the recesses. I have been on you tube but not much there. I want to do the work away from the boat so there is no mess in the marina.
Questions---What type and minimum thickness of backing board would I need and what would be the minimum thickness of teak should I use. Any tips and web sites to look at will be much appreciated.
RPP.

Many builders buy, for their manufacturing, just such panels - made up for them by, I believe, Bruynzeel.
It is, however, a very specialist process, not amenable to DIY and more expensive than laying a deck in the traditional manner unless the production run is a very long one.

 

[TQA]

Have you looked at ROBBINS ELITE-DECKING plywood.

You could cut to shape edged with 1/4 sq and lay in a day.

Not cheap.

 

[Tranona]

Hi All, I have a Beneteau 423 and I want to replace the teak on the aft deck and locker lids. I would like to make teak panels, ie gluing teak to a back board then gluing them into the recesses. I have been on you tube but not much there. I want to do the work away from the boat so there is no mess in the marina.
Questions---What type and minimum thickness of backing board would I need and what would be the minimum thickness of teak should I use. Any tips and web sites to look at will be much appreciated.
RPP.

You do not necessarily need a backing if you have enough depth in the recesses, or are gluing to a flat surface to use 6mm thick teak. You can make up the panels on a flat surface and caulk them. This is enough to hold the strips together to take them to the boat and stick them down. Alternatively you can have the panels made like that for you by KJ Howells in Poole, who can supply the materials if you want to do it yourself (but it is a lot of messy work!). Made up panels are about £300 sqm. Details on www.kjhowells.com

 

[rigpigpaul]

I will use 6mm teak and caulk it away from the boat then glue them into the recesses. The panels at the moment are straight strips so I thought I would fit a mitred boarder to give them a bit more character. Looking on the net I see some folks use teak planks with no rebate and use spacers. Then on Howells web site they supply straight planks or planks with a single or double rebate.
Questions---Which type of plank do you reccomend? What is the easiest/safest way of cutting a rebate in concave and convex bends of teak. Hope this all makes sense. RPP

 

[Tranona]

Lot of extra work doing a border and really tricky doing it away from the boat, although if you are prepared to do the extra work it does look better. Equally anything other than straight strips unless they are cut from solid is difficult to do. If you are just doing straight strips it is much easier to do it on site rather than prefabricating. Lay it all out and cut to length at home so you know exactly how it is going to fit. Use plain planks and a 5mm spacer (I cut strips of softwood and covered in parcel tape), lay the strips on a bed of adhesive and weight down with bricks/water bottles/tins of paint or whatever heavy you have to hand. Leave for a day to cure, then mask off each seam and around the border, caulk, pressing it into the seam with a spatula. Remove the tape when it is partly cured and you will have nice clean caulking lines which need minimal sanding.

Rebated planks are for use when you lay large expanses where there is possibility of differential expansion, particularly if the planks are swept to the curve of the deck. Not necessary on small areas using straight planks such as you are doing, although it does remove the need for spacers and you use less caulking.

 

[tcm]

Hi All, I have a Beneteau 423 and I want to replace the teak on the aft deck and locker lids. I would like to make teak panels, ie gluing teak to a back board then gluing them into the recesses. I have been on you tube but not much there. I want to do the work away from the boat so there is no mess in the marina.
Questions---What type and minimum thickness of backing board would I need and what would be the minimum thickness of teak should I use. Any tips and web sites to look at will be much appreciated.
RPP.

I didn't contribute to this initially as I hoped you were completely 'au fait' with the degree of carpentry skills required ... but from your subsequent queries I am not sure that you have them. Look, I don't mean to be horrid, but actually asking about the tech details of this sorta thing in the first place isn't a good sign, akin to "i am planning on a moon trip and wondering how much and what sort of rocket fuel I might need?" or well, perhaps not that bad but yerknow what I mean.

The teak will be subject to casual yet close scrutiny, and anything but a very good professional job will look ... pretty awful. It needs machine cutting and shaping, the body of the teak strips enclosed with a shaped and mitred border such that no end grain is open. The normal route is that you make hardboard shapes of what you want, and then take that to the likes of Jowells or whatever, those guys at the boat show. In fact, some of the boat/wood shops will have all the bits for all the boats so you can just tellm what the boat is and where it's for ... and they might be able to take it from there.

 

[Tranona]

No need for a mitred border for functional purposes as the strips are in a moulded recess so you leave a caulking groove all the way round and caulk that which closes off the end grain. Agree a mitred border looks good but not easy to achieve DIY whereas laying straight strips (which is what the original probably had) is straightforward.

 

[rigpigpaul]

Thanks All for your advice and tips. The planks are straight and I thought a mitred bord would take the plainess away. I have all winter to practice with soft wood to see how it looks on the bench. If it looks awful I will use straight planks.
RPP