I’ve asked this question before but I’m going to try and throw it out there again to newbies… or barnacles that might have missed it-
Has anyone ever tried to vacuum bag a thin layer of unfinished teak onto the deck of a board as a substitute for wax??
I’m just thinking it would look cool, but I wonder how effective it would be? It’s pretty standard in the boat industry. I’m wondering how thick it would have to be? Would it add strength, thus allowing you to leave out a layer of glass or use a lighter cloth? Would it weigh too much as it soaked water?
Anyone ever tried it? Or do I have to do it myself? What are your thoughts? Any of you boat builders out there?
Where could I get thin strips of teak? How long would it last? How would I get it off if it wore out? Would I get splinters in my knees duck diving?
I don’t know much about the structural properties of teak, but I do know that it’s a very oily wood and so laminating a piece of cloth over it wouldn’t work as the resin wouldn’t adhere very well. I don’t know if it would be the best as a substitute for wax either. It would get pretty slick very fast. The main reason they use it on boats is because it takes a while to weather and is rot-resistant.
I don’t believe it splinters that much, certainly not like pine. Good luck though, it would be an interesting board.
ahmmm- barnacles, eh? Would you settle for a beat up old boat carpenter?
Teak- it’s a beeyotch to work, 'cos of the silica in it. If you went with something that wasn’t a whole lot more than a veneer, joined good, maybe laminated on the back side with a good strong fabric like carbon fiber or kevlar or plain glass cloth, vac-bagged onto it…you would want to make the ‘veneer’ thick enough so that your resin didn’t saturate up to the surface , that way you get the teak texture without it getting slick.
Strips… I’d basicly resaw something with a bandsaw and a 3/4" or wider blade ( and kiss 2-3 blades goodbye in the process…or a really true table saw with a nice thin-kerf Freud carbide blade - run that through a jointer first for clean straight edges to set on the saw table) , dunno if I’d resaw anything wider than 2" or so, just so it’d form good around the deck. If we are talking about relatively normal foam/cloth/resin construction, the rest of the board would be long-since-toast before the teak showed appreciable wear.
It’s damned oily, as Rachel said. You have to hit the side you are gonna goo with acetone to lose the oils, then lam to the backside of it, then vac bag it onto the main. water saturation prolly be minimal and irrelevant, plus teak runs pretty close to 60 lbs/cu ft so it’s doubly irrelevant, the teak itself, water-saturated or no, is near enough the same weight.
It’s lovely wood, though. The temptation would be to oil it rather than let it go that nice, pretty gray it does, and then you are back to the wax thing. Or put it on thicker and attack it with a nice cabinet scraper now and then. But even then…it’s real pretty wood.
hope that’s of use - and thank you for an interesting question.
I would not worry about splinters, teak as said above won’t really splinter. What I would do is buy some 3/4" stock and cut it to about 1/8"x3/4"x lenghth of your board, then space those a 1/4" apart and fill the gaps with that black decking marine grout stuff, if the teak dose not give traction, the grout should. at over $20 a board foot, that could be an expensive mistake though.