PlasTEAK

Aug 11, 2011
953
O'day 30 313 Georgetown MD
Being couch bound for a while due to an injury, I've had the opportunity surf Youtube. Came across a video on PlasTEAK interior and exterior flooring. Has anyone had personal experience using this? Your experience and any pictures would be appreciated. Mainly, I'm pretty handy, is this as simple as portrayed?
 
Feb 8, 2014
1,300
Columbia 36 Muskegon
I replaced my handrails and some other trim with this last year. They will custom make handrails to match your originals but at $1 an inch that's pretty expensive. I have all the tools so I bought blank pieces and cut them out myself. The material is very easy to work, cuts and machines easily. The finished product looks ok but not great. It's a uniform color throughout so it doesn't really look like wood from up close. From 20-30 feet away out looks ok. The blank pieces have an embossed woodgrain texture but you lose that if you cut or machine the surface.
The material is quite flexible so it's easy to form around curves, but harder to maintain a fair curve. Mines only been on a year so I can't speak about durability, but the promise of never having to refinish was enough to try it out. The original 47 year old trim on my boat was really shot and this product was a lot cheaper than replacing with real teak. Other woods like ipe would have been cheaper but would have required finishing.
Shipping the 12 foot pieces is very expensive but they can cut to shorter lengths for cheaper shipping.
 
Last edited:
Jun 5, 2010
1,123
Hunter 25 Burlington NJ
I won't hide that I'm not a fan of plastic wood substitutes, for all sorts of perfectly logical (nor egocentric) reasons. But... I can see some people wanting to use these-- provided they're used properly.

Don't bed it down to the cabin sole. Just make boards or grids out of it and set them in place. There's not much that adheres to it, as far as marine bedding compounds; and household (HoDePo) products won't hold up to the marine environment. This is true with all forms of household materials and adhesives. The number-one reason for rotten cabin soles is plywood going bad from moisture trapped between it and whatever's on top of it (carpet, parquet floor, etc.). If you're creative you can come up with very nice removable panels or grids for the cabin and cockpit soles and be able to take them out to clean and during storage.

As to durability, the UV will eat it like gravy. I'd give it five-six years, tops, before it begins to look bad. I grew up working with and around contractors at the NJ Shore who claimed 'Wood is good but vinyl is final'. Well; they're wrong; only a vinyl-siding salesman would say that. Vinyl siding is chalky paste in about 15 years. I'd venture the same timeframe for these polypropylene fake-wood products as well (including Starboard, which both loves mold and faints under UV).

The best thing about wood is that, though it tends to need refinishing more often than plastic does, it can in fact BE refinished, mended, painted, bedded permanently, and somewhat aesthetically appealing into the bargain.