DIY Teak Boat Decking-How to set up a teak deck on your boat

Putting in a genuine teak deck on your own is easier than what you may possibly believe!

DIY teak decking on a boat? It may sound impossibly difficult at first, but I can assure you it is easier than it looks. I have put in the teak decking you can see in the picture on my absolute personal and it was one particular of the most pleasant and rewarding DIY woodworking projects I have ever undertaken, employing straightforward tools like a jigsaw and a sander. It took me about a month to comprehensive the swimming platform of our 28 ft express cruiser which you can see in the picture and about two months to set up the teak decking on the rest of the boat.

Apart from the sheer pleasure of strolling barefoot on a golden smooth true teak deck I have created myself, I can’t underrate the reality that I have saved a truly significant amount of money by turning this into a DIY task.

If you have been considering the likelihood of a real customized-made teak decking on your boat but have usually thought it would be also costly or unattainable to do on your very own, go through on, as I am about to present you phase-by-stage how I did ours.

All photos are mine and not free to use!

A handful of years ago, we took a key family selection to acquire a 280 Rinker Express Cruiser for our summertime holidays. The boat in itself is perfect! We merely really like it and commit a major component of our summer holidays living on board and cruising the Aegean Sea. It is quite effectively developed, with a cozy outside seating region and a actually cute cabin.

The boat came equipped with a big anti-skid swimming platform and a beautiful marine grade carpet covering the floor of the cockpit spot. During the 2nd yr of owning the boat and happily residing on board and cruising with my husband and our two boys for up to two-3 weeks at a time, we realized two things:

– Filth and black grime from dirty minor feet jumping barefoot aboard from dirty docks had begun to settle in the anti-skid pattern of the swimming platform, generating it quite hard/not possible to clean, specially given the relative shortage of working water at most ports.

– The cockpit carpeting, though quite soft and comfy when clean and dry, was almost continually moist on our boating journeys, mostly due to the kids’ diving and splashing all over the area and strolling about dripping moist. Though it did dry fairly quickly in the sun, consuming and consuming in the boat necessitated virtually everyday vacuuming and/or hosing down every time water was offered. For the duration of our third 12 months, the black rubber stuff lining the underside of the carpet began to disintegrate, constantly filling the boat with yucky black dust, which would uncover its way in the cabin and into our beds and make it extremely hard to maintain the boat clean.

We thought of either replacing the carpet, but that would indicate obtaining the identical problems practically straight away, or completely removing them given that we largely employed the boat in the summer time. We attempted this for a number of weeks, but the anti-skid pattern was harsh on our bare feet, not to mention that continuously stepping on crushed potato chips and soggy bread crumbs was fairly irritating…The other option was ordering a custom produced fake teak decking but soon after inspecting it on other boats at our Marina, I genuinely didn’t like the plastic-like look of it.

What to do? We genuinely could not afford to pay for a custom-manufactured actual teak decking…but how difficult would it be to set up it on my personal? I have often loved woodworking and DIY tasks and I figured that I could usually start with a smallish location of the boat, eg the swimming platform, and if the consequence was genuinely horrible, I would only have wasted a single or two square feet of teak and a good deal of my time… So I decided to go for it. I did my analysis, read almost everything I could lay my hands on about undertaking such a venture and ultimately determined to dive proper in!

Right here is how I did it.

The initial main problem I ran into nearly instantaneously was that, as you can see, the floor layout is all curvy, with no a single straight edge longer than ten cm all around! Right after hunting at a number of boats with teak decks at our Marina, I made the decision that the ideal way to deal with this was to craft a curved exterior teak border all close to, a little wider than the straight edged planks I would be using for the rest of the floor. From my extended investigation, I had concluded that I should be employing five cm broad and five mm thick straight edged planks, with four mm caulking among them, so I made the decision that a 7 cm wide border would look really great. Soon after cautiously measuring the floor spot of the boat, I estimated the amount of 5cm and 7cm broad planks I would be needing. I then ordered my lumber, generating positive that rather of seven cm wide, I ordered as a lot of ten cm wide teak planks, so that I would be capable to form, reduce and sand them into seven cm wide border pieces.

The 2nd step was to consider out the carpet and use it as a pattern. I laid every piece of carpeting flat on the floor and employed challenging cardboard to draw a 7 cm broad border all around it, divided into pieces of suitable length in accordance to the curves, taking into account the 4mm caulking seam in between them and numbering them.

I then positioned these cardboard pieces a single by 1 on a ten cm wide teak plank, drew the outline with a soft leaded black pencil and then employed a jigsaw to minimize out each teak piece. It is better to reduce out the teak border pieces a tiny bigger than smaller right here, the two as far as length and width goes, due to the fact:

a) the carpet you are utilizing as a cutout pattern may have stretched or shrunk slightly out of shape and

b) You will reduce/sand each piece to perfection just prior to gluing it to the boat floor.

I then took all the numbered border pieces to the boat and positioned them in their exact position, employing masking tape to hold them in spot and putting 4mm spacers amongst them. I had my jigsaw and sander with me, so that I could slightly reshape any piece that did not match properly.

Right after I was happy that the border was completely shaped and reduce and the 4 mm spacing definitely excellent all all around, I started gluing every piece into location, checking the fit of every subsequent piece yet again and again prior to gluing it.

Following the instructions of the specific bedding compound I used to glue the teak decking to the boat, I left the border to dry for 24 hours ahead of proceeding to the subsequent step.

I commenced the 2nd phase of my task by meticulously sanding all close to the inside edge of the border, so as to have a smooth curved finish with no sharp edges.
I then began filling in the rest of the floor with appropriately reduce straight edged five cm broad teak planks, employing a soft black pencil to draw the curve of the border on the planks nearest the edge, a jigsaw to reduce close to the outline and 4mm spacers to keep the seam among the planks truly straight.

Making use of a wide toothed applicator, I spread the bedding compound on a modest area at a time, gluing down up to 5-six consecutive teak pieces and cautiously checking the match and spacing beforehand.

Soon after finishing all of the floor area in this way and weighting it down, I left it for two days to set and remedy, ahead of proceeding to the next step.

Making use of paper masking tape along the edge of each teak plank so as to only leave the 4mm seam exposed and a caulk gun, I very carefully filled each and every seam with particular teak caulking compound. I then meticulously pulled off the masking tape and left the complete factor alone for a week, so that the caulking compound would remedy appropriately.
After a week, I sanded the complete deck, utilizing an orbital sander, with a hundred, 120 and ultimately 180 grit sandpaper.
Soon after an additional week, my stunning teak decking was entirely cured and prepared to be oiled and loved by the complete household!

What I actually genuinely adore about our new teak deck, apart from its look and feel, is how simple it is to clean and keep. Teak loves water, specifically salt water, so it is truly simple to clean, even with a bucket of sea water. A good cleansing and oiling once or twice per year is sufficient to hold it searching wonderful!