Teak in cockpit

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