Teak - how to treat (or not)

[MichaelGarratt]

I have a teak rubbing strake, cockpit gratings and those edgey bits around the hatch. The teak is the usual grey colour. Some people like to treat their teak to restore the yellow colour. What have people used and what do they recommend? (or not recommend). I really don't want to have to add to the maintenance of the boat and so my inclination is leave well alone.

 

[demonboy]

A search on this subject will bring up loads of results as this is often discussed.

Personally I prefer the grey/silver colour and it's much easier to maintain. If you want your teak to be restored to its yellow colour then there are plenty of dedicated products on the market but I've used normal washing power before now. Remember not to scrub the teak (in either direction, across or down the grain), but instead gently brush....if at all. I used to rub across the grain but was told off in this forum for doing this.

Of course your lovely restored yellow teak colour will only last for so long before it goes grey again so you have to think how much teak you are losing every time you try and restore it. Best/easiest/cheapest thing for teak is salt water so get sailing and give it a good dousing.

 

[captainslarty]

If you dont eant extra maintnance, then yes, leave well alone, if you want minimal maintnace, use teak oil - if you do, use tung oil, if it dont say tung oil on the tin, it aint as its fairly expensive (Speak to a hardwood flooring specialist, - a lot cheaper than ´Marine¨branded. Very easy to maintain imho, mind you we are on the boat full time so can quickly wipe down with turps, mask and add a coat.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is...
Walk around the marina(s), if you find the boat with the look of the wood that you like, talk to the owner and ask how it was finished, and realistically how much work is involved. Then decide.

 

[johnalison]

Already posted, I know, but one of the easiest is Polycell 3:1 Mould killer (B&Q etc) which is a watery liquid you paint on and leaves the wood a clean silvery colour which looks fairly natural. Boracol is similar but stronger, but less widely available. To restore the wood to "raw" colour takes a lot of work and maintenance.

 

[pvb]

Basically leave it alone...

Just basically leave it alone. If you give it a flood coat of Boracol 2 or 3 times a year it will keep looking good. Boracol is a wood preservative which contains an algaecide and a fungicide - it's colourless and easy to use, and will stop the wood going green or getting black spots of mildew on it. If you can't get Boracol easily, the same chemicals are in Polycell 3-in-1 Mould Remover (about £5 a litre from big B&Q stores). Also excellent for keeping sprayhoods looking good.

 

[pvb]

Snap!

 

[MichaelGarratt]

Thanks! So far I have just pressure washed it from black to grey and scraped off some horrible brown paint. The wood does tend to go green with algae over time.

 

[pvb]

Aaaarrggghhhh...

Don't ever pressure wash or scrub teak!

 

[demonboy]

I was even told never to pressure wash teak as well!

 

[heerenleed]

NEVER EVER pressure wash your teak. If you alrready have....

you must sand it down completely. If you don't you will provide the algae with plenty of food and you will keep on cleaning your teak or you will have to put up with green stuff al the time. Once you have sanded it down you will have the original yellowish colour, you can then either use teak oil (look at the other posts here please) or let it grow grey again. But the algae won't grow back soon if the surface is smooth again. By pressure washing teak, you remove the soft longitudinal fibres thus creating a very course surface, ideal food for algae and even moss.....

Eventually, teak is destroyed by pressure washing even if it is done only two or three times a year.

good luck
cheers

 

[tobble]

Re: Basically leave it alone...

I wonder what effect those chemicals have on marine life when the wash off straight into the river? sermon ends...

 

[pvb]

Re: Basically leave it alone...

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder what effect those chemicals have on marine life when the wash off straight into the river? sermon ends...

[/ QUOTE ]Absolutely minimal effect (and probably less than the acid-based teak cleaners everyone seems to be so fond of using). Applied to dry teak, Boracol soaks in and dries. As the benefits are evident for 4 or 5 months, it's fair to assume the chemicals don't readily wash off.

 

[MichaelGarratt]

I wonder what effect those chemicals have on marine life

Judging for the size of the fish that live in my marina..........

 

[angelsson]

This is a previous post which sounds good advice

My own background is having swankyish boats in the med, built/maintained three teak patios outside houses one of them 200 square metres, employed various “experts” and skippers, and spent £hundreds on all sorts of jetwashers, brushes, gizmos, and chemicals.

1. First decide if you want you teak to look like teak - or teak covered with something else. Everyone can tell if it's oiled, or if it's got protective finishes on, and so can everyone else. It looks a bit yellowish, uniform, plastic and non-natural - and it's actually not as grippy as natutral teak. There's also fake teak, which some boat builders can tell you is actually twice the price of real teak. But we humans are very good at identifying real and synthetic materials even from a good distance away. Teak should look like raw teak – just a like new boat at the boat show. Any teak can look like that again.

2. Firstly, the chemicals. You need two-part cleaner which can be obtained from Wessex Chemicals. I haven’t found anyone else who does the right stuff, althou othes have better names than er “2-part teak cleaner” which is what they call it.

You get this in 1-litre or 5-litre or 10litre plastic containers, a few quid a litre. Expect to use around 3/4 litre of each for a biggish 60foot boat at each clean. If you buy in bulk, mark the containers "part 1" and "Part2” clearly as the coloured dye can go off after year and yer can't easily tell which is which. Incidentally, the part two in concentrated form removes rust stains, which is handy, but make sure you rinse it afterwards.

3. Now , the kit: NO BRUSHES, NO JETWASHERS. You need the mildest possible way of swooshing around the boat, and on new teak this means a sponge. But a sponge on a stick, so a Vileda floor mop thing that squeezes out is excellent. For outside teak tho, esp teak which is a bit “ridgy”, the floor mop will get destroyed and stick on the ridges. The Surehold range or similar is good - you get a long stick and put attachements onnit , red handle – that’;s the one, and get the flat attachment to which you can stick on a pad that looks like a panscrub. You want the very mildest one, a white one that is soft enuf to wash your face with - only just not a sponge, not as severe as a loofah. Plonk this on the flat face of the attachment.

Okay, look you MIGHT need a brush if you teak is very heavily knackered and this is the first clean for years and years. A brush will get into the ridges - but digs out the softer material at the same time. So use a soft brush if you really must. But non-ancient boat or teack under five years old - no brush.

Oh, and you need a hose too, hopefully with a decent end attachment. Actually just a bare end is ok so the water “drops” out: it’s important NOT to have it on a “blast” setting like the cheapest hose ends – better ones have 6 options, and for teak you shd only use the setting for what feels like “rain”.

3. Cleaning even a colossal floor takes minutes, not hours. Get everything out of the area, tables chairs etc so no water goes on anything cept the teak. Screw-down tables need to be out as well. Hoover dusty inside areas if necessary.

Then wet the area with water from hose NOT blasting, just dribble about with the hose set to “gentle rain”.

Now, the key thing is that you need this to take a short amount of time - so hands and knees is hopeless as you will never do it more than once - an effective AND quick clean is what we want. I saw one guy cleaning the deck with toothbrush! – not for us I’m afraid.

4. Mix a mild dilution of Part 1 in a bucket and wipe it on to the teak with that floorpad mop thing. “5 water to 1 chemical” is the most severe you shd use ever on mossy greenish teak, but try 10water to 1chemical to start if it's just greyish.

The teak will go very dark almost immediately, the colour of mahogany or even very very strong coffee. Urgh! – a bit worrying! And the spashes on the bits you haven’t done – they’re just as bad! Don’t worry.

Keep putting the solution on, and agitate the stuff over the teak, across the grain. Use that floor mop to sloosh it around, always acros the grain gently, with the soft spongy pad.

As it goes dark, there's a tendency to not bother rubbing everywhere cos it’s “doing something” but you do need to "apply" it to the wood with the sponge/mop thing, not just rinse over. At the edges, use a mild handheld green plastic panscrub – again, not one too rough to wipe your face with – to get the edges – otherwise we won’t have the “new” look as the middle will be clean, the edges murky.

Saftey warning: SLIPPERY with Part1 :the teak loses a LOT of it’s anti-slip properties with this part 1 on so be careful and keep kids and the unwary away. On an open a sailing boat deck, be especially careful as you move around – and with the next stage too. But when finished it’s back to normal, of course.

5. Pretty much as soon as the diluted part 1 has been put on everywhere and gone worryingly dark brown, it's done the business. So once it is all uniformly wet and dark, rinse the area, and tons of brown gunk will come off, often quite a shocking amount. But imagine how filthy your car would be if you left it unwashed, just rinsed a bit now and again, for a year or more. You need it all this off. I use a rubber window wiping blade on a stick to swoosh it all out. Again, don't blast with water - use low pressure and lots of it.

6. Now the part two, the red stuff. Again , mild solution. 10water to one P2 on wet teak after part 1. This is worrying to put on cos it bleaches back the colour, and even the bucket seems to leave a mark. Argh! Again, don't worry - it will all come back bright as the bleachiness goes all over. Not much skil needed - provided you stay at a mild dilution, you can't put "too much" on - it returns to it's natural colour, so it won't go white or anything like that.

Another warning: this is a mild acid, so it will sting cuts in unprotected hands and feet. But your hands and feet don’t drop off, or at least mine haven’t been damaged anyway and I’ve done this a fair bit.

On big patios or on the pontoon (yep, you have to clean the pontoon too soon, see below) I use a garden watering can and a rose to sploosh it on. The part 1 get’s the gunk off – this seems to hardly lift any more dirt, just turn back the colour. You do need to rinse off the part 2 though.

If you missed an area with p1, it'll be silvery grey after p2, so yerd have to start again –or praps leave it til next time.

You need to carefully rinse metal items around on the floor – stainless or aluminium won’t get horribly damaged provided you get the stuff off during the rinsing so target these especially.

I wipe with a “blade” (like a windscreen wiper) to speed up the drying process, and get the dirt off without needing tons and tons of water.

Walking on the now-clean teak whilst it's drying means you lose the "utterly fab clean new-boat" look, but clean footmarks do evaporate so it's ok, ish.

Now, the teak looks brand new when it dries. Hurrah! Is it clean tho? Get a white tissue and wet it, wipe on a bit of the teak, and the tissue will remain white clean. It's clean enough to eat food from.

7. Soon the teak will get filthy and go silvery grey again. Why's that? Well it's cos of the rain, or the air or (mostly) cos you or the crew did it with your feet. In the med, big boats are "no shoes" - you step aboard in bare feet, not deck shoes, not socks, but Bare Feet, even if you charter the boat and pay a zillion pounds a week. All those swanky boats , look at the pics closely and none are wearing shoes. Ok, on some they ARE wearing shoes, but they are either deck pumps (that always stay on the clean deck) or nitwits.

8. To keep the deck clean, I'm afraid that you need to try a bit harder than you are doing. You have a deck that is utterly clean and visibly so, like white carpet. But the pontoon is filthy. It's like having muddy garden path and muddy driveway, and white carpet indoors. You need to instigate a regime to limit the dirt arriving on board.

Clean the pontoon where you step aboard for a start, using 2-part teak cleaner again, and this time use a brush cos it will be filthy, it’s already ridged, and erm, it’s not your expensive boat.

If the quayside of you normal berth is concrete, clean and then paint it with garage floor paint. Put a mat down on the quayside for changing shoes. The mat will fly away in high wind so make sure you have spare mats and take it up before a gale. I lose about one mat per year, mebbe two. If you can't be shoes-off on board the boat cos in the uk it's cold, have one pair of shoes for schlepping over to the car park etc. and dedicated shoes on board that are only for on board, never ashore.

9. Knackered ridgy teak. Teak feels as hard as nails – dense and unyielding- but is actually quite susceptible to being washed away, perhaps like very weak concrete.

To keep it from disintgrating, you need to never clean it and never wash it, and never step on it and keep it covered ! - but this aint possible on a boat. A winter cover (over the whiole boat or at least over the teak) makes it last longer. If you have bare teak indoors perhaps in a wheelhouse, and also outdoors on the deck, you'll see how the indoor stuff stays new and flat and not-ridgy for much longer. The rain does this – it’s a moderate jetwash that happens lots of times per year. So, if you had a cover, or individual covers for bits of the deck, your teak won't go ridgy anywhere near as quickly. The cover needs to allow air to circulate to stop it going mouldy a bit, but never with rain landing on it. Le Grand Bleue is Abramovich’s ugly ship with loads of playtime boats incl a big 70 foot powerboat - and the first such boat (Sirius) had individual canvas /Sunbrella covers for the teak held down with poppers when owners aren’t on board - and the teak is lovely, even after a several years.

10. Sanding the teak. Yeah, well, you need a machine to do this, and make it flat. Easy to decsribe, hard to do and makes a right mess. Once the teak is flat, you can make it smooth with finer and finer sanding, tho it will be slippery if you go on too long. It will need sanding eventually. Be very very careful with a beltsander cos it will eat a lot of material very quickly: much safer is an orbital sander with about the grittiest grit you can find: yeah, 40 grit might feel awful to your hands but it still takes a while to get the teak flat. First off, the sander dances around as it “grabs” on the raised black caulking. Then, it starts at the hard raised ridges but it still takes time even with 40grit. Get a decent machine with lots of watts – the £12 850w units aren’t good enuf and get groaningly slowed down.

Its ok to leave it a bit de-ridged rather than grind down to "new" – clean as above and you still have newe looking deck with far less ridges than before. Professionals seem to insist on whamming it down to “new wood all over” which must use more material and limit the number of times you can sand.

11 Finally, about the semco and other protective coverings again: at the cost of it looking like real natural teak, these stop dirt from entering the grain. So, it's sort-of protecting the teak for the next owner of the boat. I spose you could use these over winter, that would be okay. But would a top-class superyacht or classic racer use these protecvtive finishes, or teak? No they blimmin well wouldn't, they'd be chucked out of st tropez and the skipper

 

[avantguardia]

My opinion

Hello,I dont know if I am expert,but in my country there is no one else who work with teak wood.If you want to ask me,I will tell you that first you have to know what you want?Grey or gold color?For grey color you dont have to work allot,just rise with salt water from time to time.But,if you want original color,than here is my sugestion:1.deteak with proper chemicals(this will insure the next step)2.sand with paper 220 granual,3.wash with teak shampoo,4.finaly,when is completely dry,aplytwo-three coats of teak oil.Hope i am helpful,and sorry for my english.You can see the teak deck that i have recently work at this link: www.avantguardia.co.yu/pr.htm

 

[ebbtide]

Re: NEVER EVER pressure wash your teak. If you alrready have....

[ QUOTE ]
Once you have sanded it down you can then either use teak oil or let it grow grey again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nonsense. You've done the back-breaking bit, don't waste it!
Try Sikkens Natural matt varnish - very little maintence, works on other woods too.
Of course, if you don't want bods coming over and asking what you use then ignore . . .

 

[Ocean Hound]

Thats what I do, but first get clean and then coat it with MMS, a patio cleaner(!) that kills of any algae for 9 months, stops it going black and leaves it a silvery blue colour

 

[adl]

Great wright up anglesson, so are you saying once you have cleaned the teak you reccommend damage limitation in terms of bring dirt onto the teak combined with coverage during the winter?

Cheers