Wood Trim Pieces

[laserbrn]

I am wanting to clean up the wood trim pieces on my boat. I'm not sure which pieces are teak and what they are varnished with.

Should I just strip all of them off by chipping off what I can and then using a chemical stripper to get them clean? I'd like to varnish them as I don't really want to be out there applying teak oil every time I'm on the boat. The only excetption is the swim step.

I also want to replace those ugly orangish/salmon colored pieces holding the saddle tanks under the gunwales with some nice pieces of wood varnished and looking nice. What kind of wood should I use? Does it need to be epoxied, then varnished? I'm having a hard time finding information on what is ideal for this. I know that teak would be the absolute best, but are there other less expensive alternatives that would still look good? I'd like to have all of the wood match, and I'm not sure what color the door was done in so I'm either trying to get something to match that color or I'll have to do all of it including the door (which is okay).

What should I do for the top of this bait tank/cutting boad? That can't possibly be teak.

 

[rickryder]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

Some looks like teak and maybe cedar on the saddle tank area... You can sand them down with 120 grit paper and if you don't want to oil them use a spar varnish to seal them up. The bait cutting station looks like a teak frame with some kind of plywood. Clean it up spar varnish it and install a piece of PVC trim board to cover the wood or if you can find a big enough kitchen cutting board to fit

 

[nosticks]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

Based on what I can determine from the photos:
Photo 1 Teak
Photo 2 Mahogany
Photo 3 Mahogany Frame with Ply Inserts
Photo 4 Teak trim and possibly teak laminated center.

After many years of being a slave to maintaining trim on boats, the last time around I replaced everything made of teak or mahogany with King Starboard. The really hard to make pieces, I sanded them down and used two part epoxy in white. Teak does not do well with varnish unless you chase it continually. By that I mean a small chip or scrape needs repaired immediately to maintain the seven or eight coats of varnish that you spent your boating days applying, sanding, applying, on and on, and in perfect boating weather that you could be out on the water.

You could use one of the hundreds of oils available, easier to maintain, but still needs attention. If that last photo was and is to be a fish cleaning station, then get some King Starboard and just replace the whole thing.

 

[laserbrn]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

Thanks for the info. I think I'll do King Starboard as an insert for the cutting station. I thought about finding a plastic cutting board and just cutting it to fit into there so it's removable and I can clean it/replace it.

As a start I took what I figured to be the worst looking piece and the piece with the "cheapest" wood to see how it looked all varnished like new.

I used Citristrip and scraped as much crap off as I could. Then cleaned it all up and sanded it with 120 grit sandpaper. One coat of varnish and it already looks this much better. I am in for days of sanding the varnish and applying more coats, but my boat doesn't yet have an engine that runs so I'm in the mood for these kinds of little projects. I'm sure that I'll have time nearly annually to go through this. I think I'll leave the bow pulpit and swimstep natural teak and just oil them. They look like they've never been varnished in all these years and I don't see the reason to start now.

 

[laserbrn]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

So I took off one of those ugly salmon colored pads and it's just 1/4" ply wrapped in ugly vinyl wrap. I would like to replace these with nice wood panels. I attempted to look up places to by wood and I can't figure out what the hell I should use for this. The local Lowes didn't seem to have anything really applicable, just a bunch of pine and redwood. I can't see that being terrific.

I had dreams of doing it in cocobolo because I'm a pool player and I love cocobolo, but I wouldn't know where to start to find sheets of cocobolo and it's probably prohibitively expensive. Especially for my fishing boat that will likely take some abuse over the years. Just a thought about how cool that could look.

Anyway, teak is too expensive, so what are my alternatives? Cedar? Is there a certain kind of cedar?

 

[25thmustang]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

Mahogany... Cheaper than teak, looks great varnished and should last a good amount of time on a boat.

 

[laserbrn]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

Any idea where to buy it? I need 5" x 7' lengths approximately. Do they usually have it available at hardware stores or a local lumber yard?

 

[rickryder]

Re: Wood Trim Pieces

I would check a lumber yard.