Re-Teaking the Teak

[Fire99]

Howdy all,

My Trader has acres of Teak veneered woodwork inside the boat. Now 20 odd years later and after by the looks of the logs, some years in the Mediterranean, a lot of the saloon teak has faded to a more orangey shade and there are few battle scars and a patch bleached from water ingress. Mine I think is also polyurethane coated.
So have any folks refurbed their teak woodwork?

Any tips?

Thanks,

Nick

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Lots of intensive if not hard work with a scrapper, some very careful light sanding ( you don't want to go through the veneer) maybe application of a bleaching product like oxalic acid and then application of a suitable finishing product.
Concerto restored the insides of his Westerly Fulmar and has recorded it there were posts about it o the PBO part of the forum at one time but a PM would elicit some useful info.

 

[Fire99]

Lots of intensive if not hard work with a scrapper, some very careful light sanding ( you don't want to go through the veneer) maybe application of a bleaching product like oxalic acid and then application of a suitable finishing product.
Concerto restored the insides of his Westerly Fulmar and has recorded it there were posts about it o the PBO part of the forum at one time but a PM would elicit some useful info.

Good man.. Thanks very much. I may torment Concerto a little and see what pearls of wisdom he has..

 

[Tranona]

Solid trim is easier, veneered ply can be a challenge because it is usually thin and staining can be difficult to remove. First, though you have to get the current coating off which will need some experimenting. I have just done some and used a combination of heat and chemical plus a Bahco scraper, then bleach, further scraping and light sanding.

This is a part stripped floorboard to give an idea, although this was very hard teak and a fine finish was not required.



For finish I use Ronseal satin but plenty of other choices including lacquer which concerto uses.

Warning - enormously time consuming and danger of ending up looking worse than when you started. Best to do abit of experimenting on an out of the way panel first before tackling something like an in your face main bulkhead.

 

[Concerto]

Nick.

I suspect your "polyurathane varnish" is a high gloss lacquer. Varnish is slow drying, stays sticky whilst drying and only a single coat can be applied per day. None of which seems suitable in a manufacturers shed. Lacquer is fast drying, is only tacky for a few minutes and can be sprayed rather than brushed.

To remove your old finish I suggest you use a chisel. Use a small diamond grinding wheel (about £20 from eBay) to sharpen it, BUT leave the back curl of metal on the ground edge. This works the same as a cabinet scrapper and needs little effort. Best to start working on some solid timber before working on veneered plywood. When stripping keep an eye on the colour of the dust. Old finish will be a creamy colour, but when you start seeing some brown colour stop scrapping that area. Now lightly sand with the grain using a 400 grade sand paper. Do not rub hard or you will sand through a plywood veneer. To check all the finish has been removed, wipe over with a damp cloth. If the water gets absorded, then all the finish has been removed. If some stays dry, go back a stage and sand a little more and retest. You may still find odd patches later as creamy patches in the first coat of new lacquer, but you can then strip locally after the first coat of finish.

The lacquer I used is Morrells 450 high build low odour acid catalyst. The finish can be from high gloss to satin. My Westerly Fulmar has been finished in a 30% sheen and it had 3 coats of brushed lacquer. This is available in 5 litre cans with catalyst and 5 litres of thinners for about £60. You will have to order it from one of their trade counters (they are a wood coats supplier to mainly the furniture industry) and it will be there the following day as it is not a standard trade counter stock item. I should mention some people have had problems in some branches, so it is best to phone the order through and then collect. They have about 50 branches all round the UK.
Morrells | 450 Low Odour High Build Acid-Catalyst Lacquer

When working with the lacquer, I recommend to mix no more than 60ml at a time as that is about the maximum that can be applied using a 1½" brush before it starts to set. I use a very small measuring jug from a cook shop for such small quantities. I use a synthetic bristle brush and never wash it, just hold it in thinners, then dry off with kitchen paper. Change the thinners after about 6 coats.

One of the joys of working with lacquer is you can do relatively small areas of woodwork quickly. Many parts I took home to strip and finish to save travelling time. Once prepared you can apply 3 or 4 coats of lacquer in a day, just make sure you ventilate the boat when working.

If you have any dark water stains in the wood, these can be reduced by bleaching the wood. Use cheap supermarket thin bleach (it ha no added perfume) and dilute at 4 parts water to 1 of bleach. Brush on and leave for 10 to 15 minutes. Wash off with fresh water and dry. Once fully dry it may require to be repeted several times, but will certainly improve the look of the wood.

Most of the above is covered in this old presentation I gave.
https://wiki.westerly-owners.co.uk/images/2/25/Interior_Woodwork_Concerto_PowerPoint.pdf

To see the finished results watch this video of Concerto at the Southampton Boat Show in 2021 when she was 41 years old.

Hope this helps. I think I have covered everything, if not ask.

 

[seumask]

I re did our floor board recently which looked like Tarona's above. Sanded off the old Lacquer with a belt sander carefully observing the surface colour as recommended by Concerto in his excellent advise pages. Re-lacquered with 6 layers of water based Morell's floor Lacquer and am very pleased with the end result. The water based lacquer was easy to apply and dried to a lovely finish. Sanding outside on dry days and Lacquering on the dinning room table PBO sytle. I can see it would be more difficult on vertical surfaces in a boat but it was much less of a chore than I thought it would be.

 

[Fire99]

Thanks guys.. That's really helpful (and extensive ) information. This is definitely a project I'm going to plan carefully as one of the highlights of the boat is the woodwork inside so I don't want clumsy-hands Nick to turn it into a dogs dinner....

 

[justanothersailboat]

If in doubt try different sorts of scraper. I must admit I felt that a Stanley knife blade held perpendicular to the surface did a better scraping job on my boat's dodgy stained wood varnish than the professional scraper tools. Bit hard on the hands, but cheap and lasts surprisingly well. If it had had a better grade of varnish this would probably not have been true!

 

[Fire99]

Nick.

I suspect your "polyurathane varnish" is a high gloss lacquer. Varnish is slow drying, stays sticky whilst drying and only a single coat can be applied per day. None of which seems suitable in a manufacturers shed. Lacquer is fast drying, is only tacky for a few minutes and can be sprayed rather than brushed.

To remove your old finish I suggest you use a chisel. Use a small diamond grinding wheel (about £20 from eBay) to sharpen it, BUT leave the back curl of metal on the ground edge. This works the same as a cabinet scrapper and needs little effort. Best to start working on some solid timber before working on veneered plywood. When stripping keep an eye on the colour of the dust. Old finish will be a creamy colour, but when you start seeing some brown colour stop scrapping that area. Now lightly sand with the grain using a 400 grade sand paper. Do not rub hard or you will sand through a plywood veneer. To check all the finish has been removed, wipe over with a damp cloth. If the water gets absorded, then all the finish has been removed. If some stays dry, go back a stage and sand a little more and retest. You may still find odd patches later as creamy patches in the first coat of new lacquer, but you can then strip locally after the first coat of finish.

The lacquer I used is Morrells 450 high build low odour acid catalyst. The finish can be from high gloss to satin. My Westerly Fulmar has been finished in a 30% sheen and it had 3 coats of brushed lacquer. This is available in 5 litre cans with catalyst and 5 litres of thinners for about £60. You will have to order it from one of their trade counters (they are a wood coats supplier to mainly the furniture industry) and it will be there the following day as it is not a standard trade counter stock item. I should mention some people have had problems in some branches, so it is best to phone the order through and then collect. They have about 50 branches all round the UK.
Morrells | 450 Low Odour High Build Acid-Catalyst Lacquer

When working with the lacquer, I recommend to mix no more than 60ml at a time as that is about the maximum that can be applied using a 1½" brush before it starts to set. I use a very small measuring jug from a cook shop for such small quantities. I use a synthetic bristle brush and never wash it, just hold it in thinners, then dry off with kitchen paper. Change the thinners after about 6 coats.

One of the joys of working with lacquer is you can do relatively small areas of woodwork quickly. Many parts I took home to strip and finish to save travelling time. Once prepared you can apply 3 or 4 coats of lacquer in a day, just make sure you ventilate the boat when working.

If you have any dark water stains in the wood, these can be reduced by bleaching the wood. Use cheap supermarket thin bleach (it ha no added perfume) and dilute at 4 parts water to 1 of bleach. Brush on and leave for 10 to 15 minutes. Wash off with fresh water and dry. Once fully dry it may require to be repeted several times, but will certainly improve the look of the wood.

Most of the above is covered in this old presentation I gave.
https://wiki.westerly-owners.co.uk/images/2/25/Interior_Woodwork_Concerto_PowerPoint.pdf

To see the finished results watch this video of Concerto at the Southampton Boat Show in 2021 when she was 41 years old.

Hope this helps. I think I have covered everything, if not ask.

That's a really comprehensive write-up. Thanks a lot. I think I may have to read through this several times to get my head around what you've done. Great work..

It's interesting about the varnish / lacquer issue. The word from some Trader owners is it's polyurethane and a very very hard finish. But since Trader aren't around anymore I can't confirm that one. It could well be a form of lacquer. A boatyard in Taiwan did the main build but I don't know Taiwanese so I may not get very far asking them.

 

[Fire99]

If in doubt try different sorts of scraper. I must admit I felt that a Stanley knife blade held perpendicular to the surface did a better scraping job on my boat's dodgy stained wood varnish than the professional scraper tools. Bit hard on the hands, but cheap and lasts surprisingly well. If it had had a better grade of varnish this would probably not have been true!

Fortunately (in this case) I have an area under the forward windscreen where I would imagine a previous leak and constant sun exposure has caused the varnish/lacquer to flake away, so I can attack that area with too much risk of making things any worse. Ultimately that area may end up like lots of Trader Motorboats with a for of cover over it to stop reflection etc. A good starting place for a varnish novice like myself.