Replace trim with Teak or Plas Teak?

[Merlin Clark]

Making the new trim out of Azek or one of the other products isn't difficult if you have some basic wood working skills. I barely have these skills and mine came out ok!
I used a table saw, router table (table was handy but could get by with just router) band saw (if you're good with a jig saw that could work) and a cheap drill press for recessing screws and making bungs.

 

[Brian S]

Merlin, did you glue the plugs in with PVC glue? Like, plumbing glue, or something else?

How does the "end grain" look once you've cut off the skin that contains the grain pattern?

Thanks,
Brian

Making the new trim out of Azek or one of the other products isn't difficult if you have some basic wood working skills. I barely have these skills and mine came out ok!
I used a table saw, router table (table was handy but could get by with just router) band saw (if you're good with a jig saw that could work) and a cheap drill press for recessing screws and making bungs.

 

[Merlin Clark]

Brian,
I used clear marine silicone on the bungs, wanting to be able to remove them if needed without destroying the trim piece.

In the pic below you can see the cut and router edge of the slider rail. Ignore the arrow. I was showing someone how to cut down fix a fiberglass to fiberglass wear problem.
The cuts show the dense foam core of the material, which isn't very attractive but the trade off in cost and no maintenance was worth it to me.
2 years and no sanding and varnishing and I still get the wood trim look which is important to me.

 

[Tabi II]

Have a piece of TimberTech XLM (PVC decking) on order and should have it early next week. We ordered a grooved plank in harvest bronze. Brought a sample home and it looks like a really good match to our wood teak trim. The grooved edges are the right height and cut depth to use for our O'Day 25 hatch slides without further milling. This will be our evening project for next week. Will take photos and post how the hatch rails and toe rails turn out. We are excited! Sold out Catalina 22 and bought our new-to-us O'Day 25 two weeks ago and everything has worked out magically thus far! We are taking a few weeks to do some maintenance projects on the O'Day (Tabi II) and can't wait to finally get Tabi II in the water and see how it sails!

 

[OS2Dude]

First - Not all plastic wood is the same. Make sure what you have is PLASTEAK (R), not just some teak colored plastic wood. (i.e. The plastic deck material from Home Depot is -NOT- PLASTEAK)

You do not HAVE to send them the original pieces if you can supply a drawing and/or measurements. (I don't know if they keep data on previous runs for other customers, but you can ask. They seem to do a LOT of O'Days and may be able to look it up for you.)

Plasteak will contract/expand some. The sales person did not think it would be much for the lengths I'm using on my O23. They recommend installing in a median temperature (70 or so), not torquing it down so much it can't move at all, and having a slightly over-sized hole. They have bungs to fill the holes as well, so you don't have to have screw-heads showing. They are not glued, but are a tight fit that you then run a flame over a little to set.

Happy Sailing!

 

[JonnyQuest]

What do y'all think about using one of the plasteak type products to make a cockpit sole grate? Slippery when wet? Too Hot on feet in summer sun?

 

[Anonymous 121765]

Tabi,

I posted earlier & spoke of Sensebuilt brand of decking & facia board that I used for my trim. I don't know if you looked at this product.

Here's the link, the company is Fiberon, but they're stuff looks good.
It's not real cheap.
CR
http://www.fiberondecking.com/about/article/id/275

 

[Tabi II]

We are aware the Plasteak is HDPE and TimberTech XLM is solid PVC (made sure to buy a solid material and avoid composite deck boards). PlasTeak's quote was $300 for 6 toe rails and 2 hatch slides. We decided to give the XLM a try since it is $49 for a 12' board - enough to replace all of the teak trim on our boat if we like it, but mainly because the sample of the grooved plank we brought home is a perfect height and groove dimension for our hatch slides. This will allow us to only have a cut edge on the outside edge of the hatch slides, so we retain the factory finish on the top, bottom and hatch sides. The harvest bronze color is a very good match to the wood teak trim. We thought it was worth trying for $50 and some time at our friends wood shop this weekend.

Will let you know (good or bad) how this works out for us!

 

[JonnyQuest]

For hatch sliders it looks like some people put some sort of FG or other smooth surfaced material for the hatch itself to slide atop of--assume the reasons being a smooth slide and eventual wearing down of sliding surface hatch rides along.

Would these palsteak type materials wear down qucikly with a hatch sliding along them? Should you get serviceable use out of these without placing a strip of slider material below? Or is a more durable slider base neccessary with plasteak, etc?

Let me know if my question is not clear to readers. Thanks.

Jonny

 

[Anonymous 121765]

Tabi,

Sometimes these threads take on a mind of their own, and we find ourselves going off-tangent from the orig. question.

I thought the question was what non-wood products to use on deck. Now I see we are on hatch slides.

And, that's fine, but we are NOW off on a tangent.
If we want to stay focused, lets divide & conquer point by point.

You talked about a wood substitute, and that's what I opinioned to.
Now, about the fiberglass to fiberglass slides therein lies another tangent to the orig. thread.

I did have that same problem tough. What I did was to buy two 1" wide strips of 316SS highly polished metal strips. I epoxy-ed them in an only need to need to clean them twice a year to keep the hatch sliding easily. I gotta say, It was a ***** for years.

So, now, if we are on a tangent, this is my suggestion for the slides.........

CR

 

[Merlin Clark]

If I can hop on the tangent..
My 43 yo (at the time of my refit) had a piece of aluminum stock on each side that the slider would ride on and these had come loose from whatever caulking a PO had used to stick them down, causing some FG to FG wear.
I re-used the stock, but countersunk flat head screws into it to keep it in place and added strips of Starboard HDPE to the slider itself to ride the aluminum stock. I could have been wider on the Starboard and done away with some side to side slop.

 

[Tabi II]

Deck trim done!

Finished installing the deck trim last night. Used Timbertech XLM PVC for the toe rails, hatch slides and hatch board trim. Installed with 4200 and new stainless oval head screws not countersunk. Looks great! The XLM slotted board was perfect height for the hatch slides, so have the factory finish on all sides except the outside edge. The hatch board trim pieces were cut to have the factory finish on the face.

This made the remaining teak hand rails look really shabby. Removed and refinished those and I will sew sunbrella covers for the refinished hand rails this weekend to keep them looking great. We re-bedded the hand rails with butyl tape and put in new oak plugs from Home Depot. Refinished the hatch boards, but they are pretty well shot so need to figure out what we want to replace these with.

We are thinking we may want to re-bed the XLM pieces with butyl tape, but will wait and see how water tight everything is first. Once the four new cabin windows arrive from D&R we will install and then get the boat in the water! Love it!

 

[Tabi II]

Re: Deck trim done!

Oh yeah, now we just need to see how the TimberTech XLM PVC holds up. Hoping it will last many years, but the experiment only cost us $49.00 for one Timbertech XLM 12' plank plus the new screws, 4200, butyl tape and a weekend of work. Our first time rebidding/replacing deck wood, so it was a great learning experience!

Kind of dreading the window replacement prep though. Removed the old windows last weekend and scrapped off most of the goobered on silicon the PO used (*#^%$*&). We have a lot more cleaning and wet sanding to make sure we get a good seal with the fiberglass and new windows. I think it will be well worth it when we finally get it in the water and are sailing on this beauty!

 

[Brian S]

I was reading on TimberTech's site: "TimberTech does not recommend the use of vinyl or rubber products on any XLM deck planks. Items such as rubber-backed welcome mats, vinyl plastic swimming pools, garden hoses, planters, etc. may have a reaction that commonly occurs with PVC decking, creating a discoloration on the deck. Please refrain from leaving items with a rubber or vinyl composition stationary on XLM decking."

I wonder if it would have a reaction with butyl tape?

Brian

 

[rgranger]

Looks very nice!!!!

 

[Merlin Clark]

Looks great!

 

[Tabi II]

Tabi II is finally ready to sail!

Received the 4 new cabin windows from M &R yesterday and installed last night with DOW 795. Last weekend I sewed covers for the remaining deck teak, except the cleat risers. Photos attached of the completed project (Timbertech XLM PVC trim, new teak trim covers, new cabin windows). Will see how the PVC trim holds up - hoping to get at least 5 years out of it with no maintenance.

Wow, what a difference! I would love to have seen an O'Day 25 new.

We will finally be putting our new-to-us boat into our seasonal moorage at Fern Ridge Reservoir this weekend - then sail, sail, sail!

 

[JimGo]

Tabo, I know it hasn't been in place long, but how is the new "wood" holding up?

 

[Anonymous 121765]

Tabi,

I just looked at your finished project. Nice goin'.

I went online to look at the Timbertech site.
It's the same material I used some years ago under the name Sensibuilt.
I had to call them a few months back & was told they sold the rights to someone else. Gee, I guess who that was?

A few suggestions: never use a thinner, acetone or MEK. It will destroy the clearcoat finish. I found out the hard way.
Did you use the cut edge coating/sealer? When I did mine the edge coating color didn't match the color of the decking. MEK worked beautifully, however after 3 months it came up chalky, I was REAL disappointed.
I'm still looking for a clear finish to re-apply.

CR

 

[Tabi II]

The plastic wood looked great all summer - just like the day it was installed! Sadly, we had to put the boat into storage the end of July due to low water level in the lake we keep it moored.

We did not put any edge sealer on it. I had tried to rub the cut edge of one toes rail with acetone and also found it made it a little chalky, so stopped. We were able to cut the hatch rails and cabin way slides so the factory finish is the main exposed edge. The cut edges still look great also. We love it so far!