Raising teak toerail on steel boat.

[Conachair]

I have a teak toerail attached directly to the deck which is rusting happily where the teak joins the steel. As there is a fair amount of hardware already atached to the toerail I´m looking into the possibility of keeping the toerail but raising it off the deck using stainless steel tabs welded to the deck which would then bolt to the toerail, maybe using nylon spacers between the teak and stainless. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has tried similar and was it a success? Thanks in advance.

 

[William_H]

Much depends on the amount of gap you want. If it is just 6mm then nylon spacers should be OK providing that the screws are fairly close together.
The greater the spacing the more bending moment and so the stronger the screws need to be and more of them.
The toe rail needs to be strong for feet pushing or pressing on it or even hands pulling from below. So don't leave it too feeble. olewill

 

[Conachair]

Cheers, Olewill. I had slightly different plan in mind, welding vertical tabs to the deck then attaching toerail to them. Then hopefully no more continually wet area where the teak touches the steel and also no more fasteners through the deck, welds only. In Brazil at the mo so can get nylon top hats made up in one of the many back street workshops to insulate stainless fasteners joining the welded tabs and toerail. I hope. Just got to guess how many times I´ll set fire to the boat welding the tabs on /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[nedmin]

Do you have to weld? cant you drill and tap and use s/s set screws and your nylon spacers ,assuming the deck plates are fairly thick.

 

[Conachair]

Tapping is an option but I think welding is better. Sooner or later water will find it´s way in and stainless next to steel will start the rust again. Long term best solution is to have no holes in the boat!

 

[Bajansailor]

Your proposed modification to your toerail sounds like an excellent plan - the steel Waveney and Tyne class RNLI lifeboats have the arrangement that you describe, and I have seen various steel and aluminium yachts with toerails, even mini bulwarks assembled in the same fashion.
It would make sense on GRP yachts as well - have s/s brackets supporting a bulwark, and then bolting the stanchions to the bulwark.