Scrubbing your decks - across or with the grain?

demonboy

demonboy

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I've been told by a few people that when scrubbing ones teak decks one should always scrub across the grain in order to prevent wear. However two different teak deck cleaning products suggest one should scrub along, or with, the grain. When you think about it, scrubbing along the grain makes sense and must surely be less abrasive, a bit like the difference between stroking a dog's coat forwards vs backwards.

Anyone care to comment on this? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I scrubbed with the grain, simply because the grain is laid fore - aft and therefore to scrub across the grain means only very short strokes and hence harder work!

Incidentally, I just use salt water and a deck brush on my decks - brings them up really nicely (still quite grey - but better than the greeny sludge colour they were when we bought her having sat on the hard for over a year!).

My avatar was taken last week - decks just scrubbed with salt water.

Jonny
 
The reason for not scrubbing 'with the grain' on teak is to prevent removing the 'pith' from the wood. Eventually you would end up with a very rough surface. Harder work against a costly renewal.
 
The problem is you scrub out the soft grain leaving the hard grain in ridges. I recommend you use a very soft brush and don't scrub at all.
Teak is not a particularly hard wood and it has these streaks of soft grain in it that wear away easily.
Salt water is excellent for teak decks, I used to slosh it on the decks regularly, but hard scrubbing will leave you with finely corrugated decks which look and feel bad and harbour more dirt.
 
Across the grain, if you must, however dont scrub them atall! Use wessex chemicals teak cleaner, like TCM.

What ever you do, do NOT rub Liz the wrong way!!!
 
Reminds me of a hilarious incident:


Australian skipper with a very broad accent handing-over a boat to a group of charterers. He said..

'And remember to wash your decks with seawater every day'.

If you don't know why this is funny and why the customers looked at him with surprise/horror, then try saying it broad Oz.
 
as others say, across the grain wears it less. Best is to never clean, cover the teak, or park the boat under a roof to avoid horrible rain falling from hundreds of feet up and again diging out the software parts of the wood, almost like a jetwasj really.

However, ahem, if it ain't your boat, or if you are selling, well then scrubbing along the grain rips out every last morsel of crud and makes it seem new! Hurrah! Cept it is more worn but it does have just the same colour as new. Bear in mind tho, the deck will last yonks really, and almost nobody has ever uh-oh brushed off the last remnants of their wafer-thin deck have they? Well, not that I have heard anyway. Preserving them like new might easily mean that we are all ripping apart the livelihoods of poor subtropical hardwood forest people who depend on us in the west buying their products, and recycling it by brushing or jetwashing the whole lot overboard, and buying more teak later. Otherwise the teak will just rot in the jungle, or get used later in some awful malaysian boat a couple of decades hence when all the eurpoean boatbuilders gone bust, or worst of all become become disposable stick-on one-season teak decks that your great granchildren with chuck away and buy new nes at the chandlery for £159.99 and laugh at your silly ideas of cleaning it carefully. Or alternatively, there won't be any teak soon, but at least yours looked the absolute business.
 
How can I tell which way the grain goes on my GRP deck? I tried running my fingers over it gently, but it seems the same in all directions. Should I try scraping it with a knife? Is it best to check at noon when the light is strongest or early morning/ evening when the angle is low & may hightight the diferences?
 
Best way to tell, is dig a penknife into it and dig big lumps out until you can see the shreds of glass underneath!
 
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Across the grain, if you must, however dont scrub them atall! Use wessex chemicals teak cleaner, like TCM.

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Does anyone else have any experience of this product? On their web site it certainly sounds impressive.
 
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Never, ever, ever scrub teak decks, even going across the grain will damage the teak and you can halve the deck's life. Use a sponge.

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A sponge and what? Just salt water or a cleaning fluid? I've just bought a Contest which has a lovely (albeit grey) teak deck. I want to keep it clean, but I don't want to spoil it.
 
Use the chemicals, kinder to the deck, you can use a rough sponge like stuff which wont remove the soft polyester between the harder grain, and have lovely clean decks, scrubbing buggers decks, simple as that.
 
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