Alternatives to Mahogany and Other Idea
For what its worth, my experience with mahogany, although not for boats, is that it can be a dry brittle wood. Easily splits (particularly for a long thin long peice such as the trim along the cabin top) and from pieces that I've used in my yard, it dry/wet rots after not too many years.
If you stay with wood, consider IPE as a teak alternative; a common decking material. Strong and resiliant as teak. But much easier to find and cheaper. You could (say) buy a 10 foot long piece and rip (say) 3/8" thick (or whatever you want) slivers from it using a table saw. Or a wood shop can do it. Normal thickness of IPE is 3/4", although I've seen it also 1". At your lumber yard, you can pick through their inventory and chose one that has grain and color closest to teak. If you haven't seen IPE before, I've attached a photo of a electric guitar I made with the stuff.
When I removed strips from my boat when I repainted the cabin top, I first contemplated replacing them with another material. I thought that a long thin strip of polished SS (1/2" X 1/8") would like look nice and no maintenance required. But where to get? And at what price? As in a previous post, I knew that maintaining wood on a sailboat would never be a labor of love for me. Since I was repainting the whole cabin top, I could fill/hide the original fastening holes. So the easist solution for me was not to replace with any material.
Actually, I just had an idea. Let's assume that after removing the existing teak strips, the gelcoat could be buffed out so that the surface difference where the strips were is not too noticeable. Don't replace the wood. Instead put in the screw holes (the ones used for fastening the teak to the cabin top) the prettiest flat bottom head SS screws you can find. It would be line of decorative screws along the cabin top where the teak strip used to be.
For what its worth, my experience with mahogany, although not for boats, is that it can be a dry brittle wood. Easily splits (particularly for a long thin long peice such as the trim along the cabin top) and from pieces that I've used in my yard, it dry/wet rots after not too many years.
If you stay with wood, consider IPE as a teak alternative; a common decking material. Strong and resiliant as teak. But much easier to find and cheaper. You could (say) buy a 10 foot long piece and rip (say) 3/8" thick (or whatever you want) slivers from it using a table saw. Or a wood shop can do it. Normal thickness of IPE is 3/4", although I've seen it also 1". At your lumber yard, you can pick through their inventory and chose one that has grain and color closest to teak. If you haven't seen IPE before, I've attached a photo of a electric guitar I made with the stuff.
When I removed strips from my boat when I repainted the cabin top, I first contemplated replacing them with another material. I thought that a long thin strip of polished SS (1/2" X 1/8") would like look nice and no maintenance required. But where to get? And at what price? As in a previous post, I knew that maintaining wood on a sailboat would never be a labor of love for me. Since I was repainting the whole cabin top, I could fill/hide the original fastening holes. So the easist solution for me was not to replace with any material.
Actually, I just had an idea. Let's assume that after removing the existing teak strips, the gelcoat could be buffed out so that the surface difference where the strips were is not too noticeable. Don't replace the wood. Instead put in the screw holes (the ones used for fastening the teak to the cabin top) the prettiest flat bottom head SS screws you can find. It would be line of decorative screws along the cabin top where the teak strip used to be.
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