Quote for Teak - Eeek!

Ruffles

Ruffles

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Boat: Portsmouth, Us: Stewkley
www.soulbury.demon.co.uk
Hi,

I have an old GF sailing dinghy that I've been using as a tender for a few years. It has a certain amount of teak in it that had been varnished when I bought it, which, of course, had trapped the rain water and caused it to rot. At the time I patched it up but the time has come to do the job properly.

My problem is that I've just had a quote for teak of over a hundred quid which is half what I paid for the boat. Does it need to be teak? It needs to last because I don't fancy doing the job again. Also it needs to look good, because the dinghy is rather cute and I've got quite attached to it.

The main timber is in the top edge capping which is made up of two strips of 1 1/4" x 3/4" each side, 3m long. One is rebated. These are screwed together through the GF and the screws capped. These 4 pieces alone are going to cost nearly £60. Do they need to be teak?

BTW the quote I got was from a specialist marine supplier. I tried my local timber yard but they have stopped supplying it.
 
um. but if you always apply the logic of things costing large fraction of the cost of the boat - and the boat cost onluy £200 - it's going to be hard to justify to spend anything at all, isn't it?

There are cheaper alternatives to teak like iroko but they aren't quite as good-looking.

Fact is you got a very cheap boat, perhaps?
 
Not really. It depends if you want the hassle of varnishing etc. You could leave it bare and do it in iroko (about 1/4 the cost of teak) but it can be a bit of a pig to machine. Alternatively, if you like varnishing, a reasonable quality softwood would do the job - douglas fir etc.
 
The thing was originally varnished and left upsidown on a garage roof. Inevitably rain water leaked in and rotted it from the inside. Lovely smell of rotten leaves when I stripped it /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Also I suspect varnishing the rail on a tender is unworkable since they tend to get jammed under pontoons etc.

I have some iroko on Ruffles for the outboard bracket on the pushpit. It survives the weather ok but has gone quite black. Doesn't look the business.
 
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I have some iroko on Ruffles for the outboard bracket on the pushpit. It survives the weather ok but has gone quite black. Doesn't look the business.

[/ QUOTE ]I have some iroko on my Sadler for the outboard bracket on the pushpit. It survives the weather extremely well and has NOT gone black. I have also replaced cockpit gratings with ones made of Iroko not to mention replacing the cockpit seating and cockpit sole on a Moody with Iroko. None of the jobs have gone black, infact they have retained the "teak" colour over many seasons. The grating on my own boat has gone silvery / gr ey where the slats are not varnished.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
Bill.ey where the
 
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Isn't Iroko a swine to work tho'?

[/ QUOTE ]Not with proper tooling, by that I mean sharp tools.
The wood can splinter badly if one attampts to use blunt cutters. I have not had any major problems although I do select my own stock rather than leave it to the timber yard.
Try to avoid any pieces with crossed grain as it is difficult to plane without tearout.
If I have cross grained stock I rough dress the stock then change the planer knives for nice sharp ones for the final cuts
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Could be that my Travis Perkins iroko is nothing of the sort! Seriously considering asking JK Howells to requote for iroko from what you say. Do you know if it can be bent as easily as teak? Also, I have to replace the carved corner pieces. Does it resist splitting as well as teak?
 
I'll be using hand tools.

I have to cut a rebate in two of the long sections where they fit the GF edge. I have a hand rebate plane for this. Fortunately the surfave will be hidden. It will have to be made before the timber is bent to the boat which I suspect will make it twist slightly. Ho Hum. It's a gradual curve - and I have a wallpaper steamer!
 
I have not had any problems working in Iroko. I have made a number of curved tillers laminating the Iroko with Ash or Oak. One tiller in particular required two 70° X 6" radius bends centered 12" apart - that one did require steaming the laminates to get them to the required radius.

A tip when bending any natural timber is round over the edges before bending to minimise the chances of splintering. the rounded edge can be planed off later.

As for resisting splitting, again I have not had any problems but there again I choose my stock myself. A lot depends on how well the stock has been seasoned as with any timber - even teak.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
If using hand tools make sure they are sharp and if necessary resharpen / hone the edge during the job - as soon as the tool starts to tear the timber. It is impossible to say how often you will need to resharpen as there is such a variety in the quality of modern hand tools and very few "DIY'ers" will invest in quality tools but we'd better not get into that discussion.

A length of soil pipe (hepworth type) and a pressure cooker make a passable steamer if you are interested.
Make a wooden plug to fit one end of the pipe and connect a length of hose to it then connect the other end to the pressure cooker (I am talking about the old style cooker that had the removable lift off weight) Slide your timber inside the soil pipe and after filling the pressure cooker with water use a primus or the like to boil it and you have your steam. It helps to wrap the soil pipe in a couple of old blankets or the like to retain the heat. Slope the soil pipe down wards slightly so any condensate can run out the open end. Should not take more than about 1 hour to have the Iroko very pliable. Do wear good gloves to avoid burns though.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
You can indeed take it from your home made steamer and bend it to shape . Ive just bent a bit of oak almost to a full semicircle after just 15mins in a steamer . Its amazing how flexable the timber gets .
I used a bit of old guttering and two dust sheets to wrap it in and plug the ends . Then took the top off a wall paper stripper and put the hose in one end of the gutter then stuffed the dust sheet in the end .
It gets Very hot !
 
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