Tom's comments are always worth attending to.
The major rationale for caulking is to prevent water from getting under the
teak decks, and then down in past all those thousands of screws, to
malevolently rot the core of your decks. Caulking is supposed to prevent
that from happening. But that would truly require that the teak is otherwise
fully secured to the underlying fiberglass deck. After 25-30 years, it
probably ain't the case. It's the caulking between the back of the teak
straking and the fiberglass that is often most in need of replacement. But
it's impossible to do that unless you remove all the teak and start over.
Hence the current trend to attach the teak deck straking to the fiberglass
deck with epoxy. The probability of preventing any water from getting under
the teak is probably pretty low.

So, the critical thing is to make sure that the screws are properly bedded.
This is a much nastier job than caulking. The other choice is to live in a
part of the world where it hardly ever rains, and the temperature stays
close to the mean so there is minimal expansion and contraction. (Oh, I
forgot - also where servants provide you with shade, margaritas are free,
and somebody else does all the boat maintenance).
regards,
Harvey

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Beard" <tom16@wavecable.com>
To: <baba-l@ballreich.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 9:38 AM
Subject: RE: [Baba-L] teak decks

> My thoughts are a little different on the re-caulking job. the deck
> calking
> is cosmetic. It serves no other purpose. I have found in the past that
> calking separates from the adjoining wood in scattered areas; it is not
> universal. For anyone who has to tried to remove it, they found that the
> calking is nearly indestructible. This is one reason some are recommending
> the Fein Multimaster. My solution over the years is to use Liquid Life
> Calk
> and run it into the gaps. Following a light sanding and a few days
> weathering of teak and seam, the repair is unseen. If it is detectable, I
> can ignore it in favor of watching my new navigation screen or other
> gadgets
> that I use the money for instead, which means more to me than perfect
> cosmetics on the deck. This was my solution for younger decks--I'm now
> sure
> how quarter-century plus decks look that have a lot of tropical time on
> them. Ours happens to be almost without flaws--knock on teak!
>
> Tom
>
> MOONSHADOW
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Mar 15 10:36:43 2007