The single largest project we have carried out so far, is to mount teak on the cockpit benches. I had the actual planks cut out by a local carpenter (45x12 mm with flange for planks and 160x12 mm to use as corners, edges etc.). The actual planking then was mounted on a template (MDF) an caulked with Sikaflex™ and sanded before gluing it to the top of the benches with West epoxy™. The process is illustrated in the series of pictures below.
Teak is cut out and mounted on template | Mounted template |
Caulking with sikaflex | Excess caulking removed with hobby knife |
Sanding | Mounting (epoxy glued) |
Last touches | Finished.... and looking good (I think) |
Hindsight is a terrible thing. However, there are certain things I would have done differently to day. Originally I wasn’t generous enough with the glue and in time I have had to realize that at certain places the teak has 'hollows' underneath which may collect moist (even water). Thus to day I would have used Sikaflex or similar product (and lots of it) as glue and avoided the epoxy in order to obtain a higher degree of flexibility. Furthermore, at a later stage I have had to make a 'caulking' around the edges which in fact looks quite good. And 10 years after I'm still happy I took the trouble.... and it's still looking good (I think).
Last update October 2015