Some of the old floorboards on my 1998 Beneteau are water damaged and it makes sense to start over from scratch. I was thinking of tracing the existing boards onto regular plywood, cutting out new floorboards and sealing them with a coat of epoxy and finishing it with PlasTeak on top. Has anyone done this? If so, how does the finished product look? Do I need to use marine grade plywood or will the stuff from Lowe’s or Home Depot work just as well? Does the PlasTeak adhere well to cured epoxy?
PlasTeak on floorboards?
- Thread starter Nonixskis
- Start date
You can use "regular" plywood that uses water proof glue - exterior grade plywood. It's got more voids in it than marine grade but for floor boards would be fine. I would use marine grade for bulkheads. Always seal all plywood on all sides - especially around edges, including inside any drilled holes.
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Since you’re going to use plywood, why not just use teak and holly plywood and finish?
I’m concerned that the boards would absorb moisture causing them to expand and be hard to remove plus they would slowly rot over time. I was hoping to seal everything up with epoxy first so theres 0% water penetration then add the finish. Can you epoxy over a veneer?
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If only "Some" of the old floor boards that are water damaged, why not replace only those ? OR if they are only discoloured, use them as your subfloor to the Plasteak.
This sounds like an excellent idea and should last for the life of the boat.
First step is to ensure the original boards are absolutely dry. If they are a sodden mess, don't do it, go for new solid plywood. It's a real carpentry job to do the seams properly starting with new plywood. I've been looking at renewing my floors with new teak and holly plywood for the last few years as they only have 10 coats of varnish, cured in a hot box, and indent very easily as the teak and holly plywood are as soft as balsa. I didn't know about epoxy and how to apply it clear using glass cloth back when I got the boat new 26 years ago. This is the surface after removing all the boards and polishing them AGAIN last spring :
They look good from afar but far from good.
Remember, you will be hermetically sealing your subfloor and any remaining water in there will have nowhere to go in hot weather. This will generate enough vapour pressure to lift large areas of epoxy and give you a floating floor.
Read this epoxy manual below for the proper application of epoxy. I think this written material applies to most epoxies and the epoxy doesn't have to be System Three (ST) although I have found ST to be about the cheapest and lasts the life of the boat. I did my companionway stairs with one layer of glass cloth and about five coats of ST plus two coats of varnish, many years ago. The rough strip on each step is embedded crushed quartz for non slip.
Prepare your boards well and remove any loose varnish. Finish with #120 paper front, back, up, down, port, starboard, north, south, and side to side. Thin your first coat of epoxy well (as found in the manual) with lacquer thinner. Everything must be 100% sealed or suffer the consequences. Once the epoxy is fully cured, any glue used for the Plasteak should stick to it.
It's a close care job to do it properly but it should be beautiful and last the life of the boat.
Thanks for this detailed response. Your floor and steps look great! My Beneteau floorboards seem to be made from cheap material similar to IKEA particle board with a plastic veneer. Also the boat was designed for the European market and the thickness is not standard - somewhere between 5/8 and 3/4 inch so I think I would have to replace the whole thing to get everything matching.
So what you're saying is that finished product using the existing floor boards as the sub floor would look something like the rolling hills of Oklahoma ?
If that's the case, new plywood would be the way to go. As I mentioned, what's held me back from installing new teak and holly loaded up with a good 3/16" thickness of glass and epoxy is that some of the floorboards are very long and loaded with curves. Not an impossible job for an amateur carpenter, just a long slow fitting process to get them all fitting right.
For plywood, I'd use a 5/8" #2 Douglas Fir board (if you can find it) with only the top surface in good shape. Back side be damned.
As mentioned, the first coat of epoxy should be well thinned for penetration, followed by a second coat of epoxy at full strength. 100% coverage both times is mandatory.
Please send pictures when finished.
Happy New Year all.
Hi Nonixskis
Re Some of the old floorboards on my 1998 Beneteau are water damaged and it makes sense to start over from scratch. I was thinking of tracing the existing boards onto regular plywood, cutting out new floorboards and sealing them with a coat of epoxy and finishing it with PlasTeak on top.
Step 1. Find out what is causing the water damage and repair that.
Step 2. Replace all water damaged cabin sole (floorboards) and floors (supports below the cabin sole.)
You mention "I think I would have to replace the whole thing to get everything matching. " This is what will probably happen once you start.
This means removing as much as you can for inspection and proper drying.
The damage on the old stuff, price and availability, should help you decide on "marine" ply or exterior construction ply.
Either way a timber supplier would be a better choice than Home Depot or Lowe"s, for obvious reasons.
As mentioned treat the new sole pieces with epoxy for waterproofing.
Step 3. What to cover the sole with?
We have Plas Teak. teak and holly veneer( see Ralph's photos), Lonseal (thanks to dmax),
The other alternatives not mentioned are Birch ply stained with masking to give the impression of holly strips and cork domestic flooring tiles.
This is a stained sole.
Take a look at Ralph"s photo again and imagine it wet. We put non slip on our exteriors and shiny dance floors below!
Drop a pan on it you have a ding
Drag something (anything) and you have scratches.
Stand and move around in one place (in front of the galley) and you have wear patches.
That is why I suggest cork tiles. https://www.icorkfloor.com/
Good grip at sea, ding wear and scratch resistant, easy to apply, easy to replace individual sections. reasonably priced, sound and heat insulation quality and in my opinion good on the eye. Also, available in a wide range of designs and colours. There are tiles that you don't need to glue down, but they seem a bit iffy. Worth a consideration though as test pieces.
Of course cork is not perfect, but what is?
gary
Hi Nonixskis
Re Some of the old floorboards on my 1998 Beneteau are water damaged and it makes sense to start over from scratch. I was thinking of tracing the existing boards onto regular plywood, cutting out new floorboards and sealing them with a coat of epoxy and finishing it with PlasTeak on top.
Step 1. Find out what is causing the water damage and repair that.
Step 2. Replace all water damaged cabin sole (floorboards) and floors (supports below the cabin sole.)
You mention "I think I would have to replace the whole thing to get everything matching. " This is what will probably happen once you start.
This means removing as much as you can for inspection and proper drying.
The damage on the old stuff, price and availability, should help you decide on "marine" ply or exterior construction ply.
Either way a timber supplier would be a better choice than Home Depot or Lowe"s, for obvious reasons.
As mentioned treat the new sole pieces with epoxy for waterproofing.
Step 3. What to cover the sole with?
We have Plas Teak. teak and holly veneer( see Ralph's photos), Lonseal (thanks to dmax),
The other alternatives not mentioned are Birch ply stained with masking to give the impression of holly strips and cork domestic flooring tiles.
This is a stained sole.
Take a look at Ralph"s photo again and imagine it wet. We put non slip on our exteriors and shiny dance floors below!
Drop a pan on it you have a ding
Drag something (anything) and you have scratches.
Stand and move around in one place (in front of the galley) and you have wear patches.
That is why I suggest cork tiles. https://www.icorkfloor.com/
Good grip at sea, ding wear and scratch resistant, easy to apply, easy to replace individual sections. reasonably priced, sound and heat insulation quality and in my opinion good on the eye. Also, available in a wide range of designs and colours. There are tiles that you don't need to glue down, but they seem a bit iffy. Worth a consideration though as test pieces.
Of course cork is not perfect, but what is?
gary
Just to make communication and site searching easier, it really helps to use standard terminology. The "floors" are structures beneath the cabin "sole" sections. I have refinished all of our cabin sole pieces, twice, over the 3 decades. Due to cost I have not replaced them, but rather did some patching of little gouges inherited from the prior owner. (It's always nice to have a prior owner (PO) to blame for stuff!) 
Note that if your boat has moisture attacking the present sole pieces, you really must locate the source and stop it. There is seldom/never any reason for water to be regularly in touch with the bottom of the those $$ sole pieces.
Note that if your boat has moisture attacking the present sole pieces, you really must locate the source and stop it. There is seldom/never any reason for water to be regularly in touch with the bottom of the those $$ sole pieces.
We own a 1998 Oceanis 321 and this has been my winter project. I would say I did a decent amount of research comparing refinishing the original sole plates, building new with a faux teak and holly appearance, and building new with a teak and holly veneer. The cost of the veneer was detrimental and the return on time from making new was also offputting.
Attached are a few pictures of current progress. A great video by Boat Works Today led me to choose TotalBoat Gleam. You'll find one picture of 4 coats gleam + a rejuvenating oil and another of just 4 coats gleam. Also the use of a stain pen to touch up faded holly alongside the use of a water based stain. Ultimately I've chosen to just use gleam, likely 10 coats, gloss finish. The water based stain bleads, the stain pen works well but is tedious. I did not try a gel based stain because I could not get it locally in a tiny sample size.
My word of advice if you've never done this before (I hadn't), start with a sole piece that isn't the center of attention. I chose the small piece under the companionway steps which is half exposed to the engine room and half exposed to the cockpit, also under heavy UV damage through the companionway. You'll see when I started I was not good with the heat gun and did some burn damage, thankfully you'll never see it. Now that I've done over half of the interior stripping, I can strip one sole plate in less than 30 minutes with just a heat gun and putty knife. I'm simply sanding the sides and not doing anything with the undersides, as 99% of the time I'm the only one sticking my head under the sole anyways.
For a previous comment, our sole plates are 14mm thick with a 1mm veneer. Would have been tough to match this in the US without owning a planer.
Attached are a few pictures of current progress. A great video by Boat Works Today led me to choose TotalBoat Gleam. You'll find one picture of 4 coats gleam + a rejuvenating oil and another of just 4 coats gleam. Also the use of a stain pen to touch up faded holly alongside the use of a water based stain. Ultimately I've chosen to just use gleam, likely 10 coats, gloss finish. The water based stain bleads, the stain pen works well but is tedious. I did not try a gel based stain because I could not get it locally in a tiny sample size.
My word of advice if you've never done this before (I hadn't), start with a sole piece that isn't the center of attention. I chose the small piece under the companionway steps which is half exposed to the engine room and half exposed to the cockpit, also under heavy UV damage through the companionway. You'll see when I started I was not good with the heat gun and did some burn damage, thankfully you'll never see it. Now that I've done over half of the interior stripping, I can strip one sole plate in less than 30 minutes with just a heat gun and putty knife. I'm simply sanding the sides and not doing anything with the undersides, as 99% of the time I'm the only one sticking my head under the sole anyways.
For a previous comment, our sole plates are 14mm thick with a 1mm veneer. Would have been tough to match this in the US without owning a planer.
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UPDATE:
Project successful. Went with the Plasteak Teak and Holly (matte finish) and it looks great! Cheap plywood instead of marine plywood worked out fine (just fill the voids with Minwax and lightly sand).
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I bought 15 feet of PlasTeak (6 ft wide roll) at $50 per foot plus 3 quarts of glue, a roller and 3 sheets of plywood ~$1,000 and around 50 hours all in. Lonseal is $45 per foot and they are the same product (see the TDS technical data sheet) but Lonseal recommends a special epoxy adhesive that can only be mixed in large quantities and is not suitable for a sailboat floor. Plasteak has excellent customer service and resources available (see attached). A router with a flush trim bit will duplicate the boards perfectly. Hardest part is lining up the stripes. I followed the method in the attached file with mixed success but didn’t perfect it until I got halfway through. Key is to use a large sheetrock T square to line up the boards perfectly and then clamp down the cut out material to the top of the board very tightly. Lift the flap and apply glue to bottom half using a chip brush then flip, move the clamps to the bottom of the board and apply glue to the top half and then apply the roller.
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PlasDeck is for the cockpit / exterior surfaces. Here’s a PlasDeck install:
Interesting.
What is the cost of marine plywood + Teak & Holly Veneer plus finish coats
What is the cost of of Teak and Holly sole material (produced as cabin sole, veneer put on at the factory) plus finish coats?
What is the cost of marine plywood + Lonseal?
What is the cost of marine plywood + Plasteak?
All the same questions for using something other than marine plywood
What is your time worth and how much time will each method take? Set a reasonable number.
Make a spread sheet of all the factors and include final finished appearance as a "intangible factor (what is the final look your willing to pay for)
I only needed to replace two pieces and could get them done with one 4X8 Teak & Holly Sole (about $400). It was a challenge carefully sanding down the finish on the other pieces and matching the stain but it came out really nice. I used the original finish that Hunter put on which is Daly's Seafin.
Here is a picture of my refinished cabin sole. The "blue" is reflection from the ports onto the sole. The replaced piece is the big one directly below and to the right of the ladder.
What is the cost of marine plywood + Teak & Holly Veneer plus finish coats
What is the cost of of Teak and Holly sole material (produced as cabin sole, veneer put on at the factory) plus finish coats?
What is the cost of marine plywood + Lonseal?
What is the cost of marine plywood + Plasteak?
All the same questions for using something other than marine plywood
What is your time worth and how much time will each method take? Set a reasonable number.
Make a spread sheet of all the factors and include final finished appearance as a "intangible factor (what is the final look your willing to pay for)
I only needed to replace two pieces and could get them done with one 4X8 Teak & Holly Sole (about $400). It was a challenge carefully sanding down the finish on the other pieces and matching the stain but it came out really nice. I used the original finish that Hunter put on which is Daly's Seafin.
Here is a picture of my refinished cabin sole. The "blue" is reflection from the ports onto the sole. The replaced piece is the big one directly below and to the right of the ladder.
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