Fake teak by Dek-King

[Deben Sailor]

Accepting that opinion is divided about use of artificial teak deck material, we need to replace some tired diamond tread treadmaster on the cockpit seats. If you've fitted the Dek-King product are there any problems or deficiencies we should be aware of?

 

[Tranona]

For a small area like that you are probably better off doing it in real teak, either strips of veneer or for a bit more you can get premade panels to suit your area from Howells in Poole. Vastly superior to the fake and will last the life of the boat.

 

[fastjedi]

In our case we were replacing teak veneered plywood reccessed into the cockpit seating areas. It was a very close decision with real 6mm teak panels from KJ Howells winning the day because

1. Real teak matures gracefully ..... fake teak has to be perfect! There are a lot of fake teak boats around with failed bonding / coming apart at the seams. Most probably poorly fitted in the first place?

2. At 4 - 5mm we would have required lots of adhesive to match the levels. I wasn't convinced I could acheive a flat surface with floppy plastic! If you are surface mounting your panels you might see thinner panels as a good thing!

3. Taking into account the cost of adhesive and caulking, there isn't much difference in cost if you compare like for like (prefabricated panels) In your case, the panels will need to be framed?

 

[Solent sailer]

we re-did our cockpit seating about 4 years ago with flexi-teak. their are a couple of "bubbles" now where the bonding has failed but i blame myself for that it would have been the same with any other plastic material/nonslip decking and i would pay more attention to making sure it was all well bonded should i fit any again. the surface is slightly softer to sit on than the old real teak and is easily squeezed dry in the mornings to sit on for breakfast also the jet wash doesn't damage it. as far as looks go it doesn't fade like teak but looks fine to me where it is it is a hard waring none slip surface that doesn't stain and can be pretty well abused!

 

[Rivers & creeks]

we re-did our cockpit seating about 4 years ago with flexi-teak. their are a couple of "bubbles" now where the bonding has failed but i blame myself for that it would have been the same with any other plastic material/nonslip decking and i would pay more attention to making sure it was all well bonded should i fit any again. the surface is slightly softer to sit on than the old real teak and is easily squeezed dry in the mornings to sit on for breakfast also the jet wash doesn't damage it. as far as looks go it doesn't fade like teak but looks fine to me where it is it is a hard waring none slip surface that doesn't stain and can be pretty well abused!

We are finding marks difficult to remove, what do you clean yours with?