Whats best Permateek or Flexiteek synthetic teak decking any problems encountered

[Hurricane]

My job has now got too big for my garage - I had to open the doors.
Maybe a bigger garage - or a smaller boat!!

 

[jfm]

Seems to work - this is the hatch for the lazerette

View attachment 171569

Hurricane, I'm curious about why - on the lazarette hatch - the corner pieces of the border are not the same on the corners close to the camera as on the corners away from the camera. The joints between the straight pieces of border and the corner border pieces intersect different planks, and the radii seem different. Are you copying the Princess original and is there a reason they did it that way?

 

[Hurricane]

Hurricane, I'm curious about why - on the lazarette hatch - the corner pieces of the border are not the same on the corners close to the camera as on the corners away from the camera. The joints between the straight pieces of border and the corner border pieces intersect different planks, and the radii seem different. Are you copying the Princess original and is there a reason they did it that way?

Yep - it is a bit strange, the radii are different.
I haven't got a photo of the whole lazerette hatch but here are two that I think show the differing radii and the original Watsons teak design.





And, yes, I'm trying to copy the original - but with different caulking joints.
Remember, I'm not a professional - just a bloody minded DIYer.
That said, there are some horribly designed synthetic teak upgrades out there.
So I try to get caulking lines to line up.
Also, I don't like very thin planks - I think they look out of place.

I find that centering the panel within the border frame differently can often avoid this.

For example, this foredeck fitted to another (different) P67


Versus - mine


And this V65


Versus mine


I think it will work out OK on my cockpit design but there are so many variables.
It only takes a bit of thought - something that most of the professional suppliers don't seems to do.

 

[Portland Billy]

I'm interested in the cost and fitting of the various options paid by forumites,
I've just been quoted 'telephone numbers' for about five square meters on cockpit and platform.

 

[harvey38]

I'm interested in the cost and fitting of the various options paid by forumites,
I've just been quoted 'telephone numbers' for about five square meters on cockpit and platform.

We had ours done in three sections over two years, upper helm, ring deck and coach roof, Roughly £3k per section. Tek-Dek did all the templating and fitting and travelling from their base in Hampshire to Ramsgate.
Value for money is very personal, will we recover that in re-sale? No, but the Treadmaster was shocking and once removed, some sort of covering needed to be sourced. We are very happy with the cost, quality of work and end result.

 

[Hurricane]

I'm interested in the cost and fitting of the various options paid by forumites,
I've just been quoted 'telephone numbers' for about five square meters on cockpit and platform.

I had a price from the Spanish Flexiteek agent.
Their price was about 45,000 euros to do the whole of our Princess 67 - less the bathing platform that had already been done.
I wasn't happy with pervious work that they had done in our marina.
So I set about doing it myself.
Two reasons - financial, but more importantly, I wanted to do it myself - learn the skills - try and do a better job.
I like challenging myself.

Costs
Bathing platform cost me about £5,000 - done professionally - I shipped out a Flexiteek contractor from the UK.
The rest, I bought from Trakmark (the DIY arm of Tek-Dek).
Difficult to be exact but the total cost of the materials was about £7,000
Over the years, tools have cost me about £1200 but I have also spent quite a long time making bespoke tools to do the job.

I'm afraid that this doesn't answer your question.
But don't do a DIY job for financial reasons only - there is a LOT of work
I'm getting a real buzz doing this myself but it is a steep learning curve.

End has been worthwhile though





Hopefully the cockpit will work out as well - should be done this spring - soon after Easter.

 

[Portland Billy]

The stuff I see advertised comes in straight strips.
How did you do the curved border edges.
Is there another product for this or does the stuff bend ?

 

[harvey38]

Heat it gently and the curve will form.

 

[Hurricane]

The stuff I see advertised comes in straight strips.
How did you do the curved border edges.
Is there another product for this or does the stuff bend ?

As harvey38 says, it does bend a lot after it is heated.
I use a heat gun but you have to be careful you don't get it too hot.
Where possible, I tend to heat it on the back.

Gradual bends (curves) on borders can be done by heating it and then welding it to the rest of the panel.
But tight bends need to be cut and made specially for each circumstance.

Here is an example where I managed to curve the border by heating - but that was the limit of what is usually possible.
This piece also has the Trakmark solid box section to give the step some depth.




Today is a good example of where heating and bending won't work.
I'm working on the cockpit border where it borders the flybridge stairs.
This would be impossible to make by heating and bending so I' making the whole border by cutting sections from the Trakmark King Plank.



In this case, after cutting the individual pieces out I glued them together last night.
The material cuts easily with a special Stanley type knife - a bit of heat helps with the cutting.
The Stelmax glue that Trakmark supply works really well and holds it all together until the piece can be welded in.
Today I will "router out" and "top weld" the joints and then put that border piece aside until I get out to the boat.
The panels are already roughly cut to the size/shape required.
So, once the panels are in place, I will lay that border strip over the panels and mark the panel with a pencil.
Then cut the panel and weld that border piece into place.
Well - that the plan anyway!!

Hope that helps

 

[jfm]

Hurricane your work here really is superb. Huge respect. Requires plenty of patience and stamina I bet.
Ref post #23, your foredeck is 100x better than the other Princess 67.
Good idea to use the king plank raw material to make moderately curved border pieces.

 

[Hurricane]

And after the routing/top welding before I rolled it up and put it in the pile for Spain.
It will need some finishing once it is welded in place.

 

[Hurricane]

All prep work is done now.
The biggest problem I have is that the boat is 1000 miles away.
Trying to work out a strategy where the panels made here in Devon will work when they get out to Spain is quite challenging.
The concept that I'm working on for the cockpit is to make it fit roughly without borders.
That way, I have 60mm tolerance (well + or - 30mm).
I then weld the borders on after trial fitting the panels.
Time will tell if it works.
We are driving the synthetic teak and my tools/workbenches out for 2 or 3 weeks over Easter.
It will all go in the Donkey Box (our trailer - a small horsebox style trailer - too small to be a horse box - hence called the Donkey Box)

 

[benjenbav]

Hurricane your work here really is superb. Huge respect. Requires plenty of patience and stamina I bet.
Ref post #23, your foredeck is 100x better than the other Princess 67.
Good idea to use the king plank raw material to make moderately curved border pieces.

I’m also blown away by Hurricane’s work on this. I think - and perhaps he will confirm or refute - that he followed the Princess OEM ‘caulking’ pattern for the new surface? In any event I do like the fact that there’s a king plank patterned in and the clever working of margins to avoid the appearance of unduly thin strips.

 

[Ribtecer]

Hope that helps

It really does - thank you.

I'm just about to start my job, which is a much smaller project, but your info and advice is invaluable.

I too will source the materials from Trackmaster in Alton. Did you find them helpful at the beginning of your learning curve?

 

[Canopy Locked]

As others have said, I'm in awe of Hurricanes skills - not having skills to get it right 1st time, I have used a Permateak contractor - it looks pretty good I think and will be fitted next week. It will cover the deck I worked on last winter, very nicely

 

[Hurricane]

It really does - thank you.

I'm just about to start my job, which is a much smaller project, but your info and advice is invaluable.

I too will source the materials from Trackmaster in Alton. Did you find them helpful at the beginning of your learning curve?

Trakmark were very helpful in getting started.
You will need some specific tools - mostly you can make your own tools.

I hope I'm not teaching "Grandmothers to suck eggs" but I wouldn't want you to go through the learning that I had to.

The key for me is to ALWAYS use a lot of weights.
I made my own by cutting some 4x2 square section steel about 6" long and filling the sections with lead.
These are the ones that I made - I have 26 of them and thats just about enough - BTW they are really useful to have anyway.


When welding, the main concept is to get the surfaces ABSOLUTELY flat.
When welding on the back (this is where most of the welding is done) you need to get the edges really flat.
Start with a white board/bench and lay the joint out so that you can see the white of the board.
Then use weights to push the two edges firmly down onto the white board.
Then slide the two edges that are to be welded together until the white from the board disappears.
I usually make sure that the edges are pushed tightly together.
If you have any white showing through the end joint WILL fail.
Trakmark suggested to me to use some of these to hold the edges down



Those work well for the one side of the weld but don't work for the side nearest to you.
Trakmark use some smaller weights made from 4" mild steel flat bar on that side but I do it differently.
I use short lengths of 1" flat bar that I weigh down using my weights - like this



I used to balance the weights on the flat bar - it was a bit like building a castle out of a pack of cards!
It took me a long time to come up with these little brackets - simple and work really well.



It takes a long time to set up for the actual welding but you need to end up with something like this



Hopefully you will see from that photo that the top surfaces of both pieces need to be ABSOLUTELY flat before you start welding.

The most important tool, of course id the welder itself.
Initially, I bought a Steinel from Trakmark



I have since bought a Leister Hot Jet S
Without a doubt, the Leister Hot Jet S is easier to use than the Steinel



Here is a video of the Steinel in use - but if you are buying from scratch, I would get the Leister Hot Jet S

When buying from Trakmark, the Stelmax glue is very useful to have.
When doing top welding, you will need a 4mm router and a good fence.
Most of my top welds I use a Trend Router and a homemade fence made from perspex



I also bought a "Power File" (Trakmark's suggestion) - I bought a cheap Black and Decker one - be careful to use it lightly - it can be very aggressive.


Hand made joints are finished with 60 grit sandpaper with a good sanding block.

So, you can see that there are quite a lot of DIY tools to get/make.

You may not have seen this thread where I documented the start of my plastic teak venture.
Several of the photos from the early posts have gone from that thread but you might find it interesting.
DIY Synthetic Teak

If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer where I can.

 

[Hurricane]

As I said above - all prep work for the cockpit is now done - just waiting to go out to the boat.
This is our spare bedroom - SWMBO is great - doesn't seem to mind!!

 

[Hurricane]

I’m also blown away by Hurricane’s work on this. I think - and perhaps he will confirm or refute - that he followed the Princess OEM ‘caulking’ pattern for the new surface? In any event I do like the fact that there’s a king plank patterned in and the clever working of margins to avoid the appearance of unduly thin strips.

In fact, I don't follow the Princess caulking patterns.
I can't really because Watsons use a 44mm plank and Trakmark's plank is 50mm (101mm for two planks including te caulking).
Also, when making wooden decks, you can't have a point in the design or you will get wood splinters.
So the professional wood teak suppliers use "snapes".
These are curves where the planks would otherwise taper to a point.
Now, plastic doesn't have splinters so we are free to change the design.
When I started on the foredeck, I spent a long time deciding whether to make snapes out of plastic.
Making snapes is time consuming and for a DIYer can look awful.
So I did some tests on my foredeck to see what I preferred.
I took some photos
The side deck specifically.

This is with homemade DIY snapes



And this simpler design



Taking it all into consideration, we went with the simpler "cleaner" design.
It isn't authentic - but, then again plastic teak isn't authentic anyway.

And this was the final result - a clean, uncluttered design.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Please excuse the intrusion of a rag & stick man on your forum but I happened to notice the thread title and, following my experience with them, I seriously advise avoiding Flexiteek.
I had the entire deck of my 38 foot sailing cruiser replaced by a Suffolk-based Flexiteek contractor who, as well as being hopelessly unreliable and doing a pretty so-so job has now ceased trading and, despite numerous promises to the contrary, will not repair the multiple failed welds under the five year warranty. Many of these appeared within weeks of completion.
Ok, so not an unusual story, except that this individual is now a director of Flexiteek UK.
Btw. Hurricane, as a retired carpenter & joiner I too am seriously impressed!

 

[davidej]

I talked to the Flexiteek man to measure up our boat but he never turned up