Teak deck needs recaulking

Koeketiene

Koeketiene

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Our deck needs recaulking in places.

Due to lack of time it looks like I will need to have the job done professionally.
Any recommendations where/whom - East Coast?

Alternatively; should I have some spare time in the near future, could you point me to a fool proof idiots guide should I DIY it?

Thanks
 
oh dear, but this is PBO yerknow, and several people will be fainting dead away at the though of getting someone else to do it.

Get some sikaflex mastic and some masking tape. Make sure you get the right mastic by going to the shop and saying "sell me some black sikaflex for caulking a teak deck please". Any dead cheap masking tape will do, but get some just narrower than the teak else it will be painful doing two holes on either side of same piece of teak.

Then go back to boat dig out all the loose bits of caulk, leaving only the good bits. V lowly crew/kids cn do this.

Then mask along each side of gaps, and at the ends so the ghastly gloop only goes in the holes. Get some lowly crewperson to do this as well.

Then with mastic gun and tube of mastic suitably chopped off at end, bosh the mastic stuff in the holes. You can be quite rough, and make sure it is bodged in good and proper. Don't let lowly crewperson do this, cos it's man's work (i.e the best bit, but can go badly wrong if black sikaflexx ends up everywhere).

The holes need to be just overfilled so they can be taken back to "flat" later. Release the gun pressure after each hole. Wear disosalble gloves, and have plenty of tissue/bog paper cos it'll be a bit messy regardless.

Once the holes are filled, Leave Them Alone. Cos the stuff develops a "skin" after only a few minutes and looks a right mess if you fiddle with it later. But if you do go back, fill it in again.

Next morning the gear has gone rubbery and you *might* be able to work down the caulk by slicing it off with one-sided razor blade if you are any good at fiddly stuff. But it mite need a bit more curing tho probly not.

Have a go at one of them before ripping off all the masking tape. The gloop will have gone over the masking tape anyway so go gently.

If it's too fiddly, you can have a go with a belt sander first off which rips off the excess nae bother. I wd use 80 grit, largely bacause i can't be bothered to change the 80 grit belt already on the belt sander, but try it first.

An orbital sander is a bit rubbish cos it just dithers about on the stuff. If anyone ever suggests an orbital sander for anything, by the way, you can win easy DIY-one-upmanship easily by saying "I wouldn't let one of those come NEAR my boat" and people are all ooer respectful.

Leave the tape on as long as poss else you will have some black marks on the teak which technically should be sandable but in practise a bit of a pain. But you can continue with belt sander into the teak a bit to make it look half decent. Have a vacuum cleaner with nozzle at hand to get rid of chopped-off or sanded-off black bits, cos they are still a bit smearable the next day, and ruin your trousers if you sit onnem and/or get on your shoes and/or then help ruin something else like a sofa, unless it's a black rubber sofa.

The day after that treat the whole teak deck to 2-part teak cleaning.

Ok, you can get a bloke in if you want.
 
Can't help you with professional people. But I've spent last winter doing the deck myself. I can tell you; it is not a fun job.

First you need to determine the make of the current chaulking. Is it Silicone based or PU based. Sikaflex is PU based.
Then you need to remove the old stuff. There is a tool called 'Fein Multimaster' that can help you there. It has a special (optional) blade that oscilates at 12.000 movements per minute.
(http://www.fein.de/corp/de/en/multimaster/index.html).
Then you need to remove the residuals. If you are switching from Silicone to PU, this need to be done VERY well as the two do not mix or bond.
This is also the tricky part as you need to be very careful not to damage the wood when scraping the seams.
After this you need to use a piece of sanding paper and a rectangular piece of hard plastic (to hold the paper and guide it in the seams) to sand the seams to get them smooth again.
Now use a light band-sander to sand the deck. Stick to light sanding just to get the surface even across the seams. Don't try to sand all the gray teak away.
Then you need to use self-adhesive paper tape to protect the upper surface between the seams. It's not stricktly needed but it saves time in the end.
Now you can apply the primer in the seams and within an hour you must/can use a pneumatic dispenser to rechaulk the seams with sikaflex. Use a spoon to equalise the seam.
Immediately afterwards remove the self adhesive paper tape.
After a week you can use a sander to do some spot cleaning where needed.
Try to do as little sanding as possible.
It took me most of the weekends last winter to do 240 metres of seam. In the end I've seen every centimetre of seam 6 times from real close.
An another guy in the hall where my boat was hired a proffessional to do the same work (less seams) and got a bill in excess of 8000 Euro's. Oops...

In the end the deck came very well and looks almost new again and very little thickness of the deck was removed during the process,

Arno
 
Thank you all for the advice.

Couple of reasons why I am more than a little bit hesitant to give DIY a go.

1. I have never done this before (first boat with teak deck). At the moment I've narrowed it down to five places where the deck needs recaulking. Otherwise the deck's fine. I'm afraid that by trying to do it myself I will do more damage than I will save money.
2. The deck's screwed in place, where it needs recaulking I would also like it glued in place. Don't think I have the tools or skills for that.
3. From all the horror stories I have heard it's extremely time consuming. To be honest I can spend precious little time on the boat as it is, and when I am on the boat, I'd rather be sailing.
 
I did a good deal of recaulking over the winter and beleive me I am a total DIY disaster! I too had no experience but can confirm its nowhere near as hard or as time consuming as you think - if I can do it just about anyone can.

Have a look here... Deck Caulking

Go on, have a go!

Mark
 
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