Hi Andrei, More $.02 worth of experience: Teak needs maintenance As you said, the choices are: - varnish it, ... use Cetol, or.... - leave it natural and just oil it I have tried them all, and sooner or later you are faced with the job of refinishing your teak. With varnish, it looks good, .... for awhile, but then moisture finds a lower edge (at the deck) and starts lifting the varnish from the teak. The lifting film turns yellow. Eventually you have to strip the varnish and do it all over again - good for several years - but it still requires redoing.... I used Cetol on my M15 and was pleased with the ease of application and with the results. It lasted as long as we owned the M15. Teak oil is another possibility, but it too requires periodic refinishing and reoiling. ....or you can just clean the teak using two part teak clean (be careful and use rubber gloves) and let it slowly weather. It turns a nice shade of gray. So, it all depends on what kind of teak finish you are willing to live with and maintain. ------------------------- To remove old stickers (registration numbers) try a hair dryer to soften the adhesive, and then use a fairly sharp putty knife to lift off the plastic remains. Once the numbers and letters are off, try acetone to remove the rest of the adhesive; ...or try GOO-OF which is formulated to do just that. ------------------- If you are planning to refinish the rudder anyway, why not give the HOME DEPOT product a try? ....otherwise, if you just have small area without varnish, I'd just take a baby food jar with some marine varnish and touch up the spots, till you do the full job this winter. ------------------- My M15 hatch boards were made of teak faced plywood, and when I bought the boat they were separating at the plies. I made new ones after buying a piece of teak faced plywood. To remove varnish from any surface, there are two basic methods: chemically or mechanically With the chemical method you use a stripper that lifts the old varnish so that you eventually have a clean surface, which you then have to sand and refinish. The mechanical method is to take a /_*sharp*_/ scraper (about 2" wide is a good size) and "carefully" remove the varnish. By carefully I mean not digging into the base wood so that you leave deep gauges that then have to be repaired. Once you have tried it and developed a feel for the process it works nicely. I guess the basic question is: how large is the surface? What condition is the varnish in? ... if it is already peeling off, scraping probably is the easier approach. (but watch out for MURPHY. He is always standing behind you ready to cackle with laughter when you try to scrape a surface and then find out that the varnish has been welded in place. When I started to refinish the ComPac 16, which had been painted with latex house paint, the first 6" long strips of paint came off very easily. I rejoiced. This striping was going to go easily I thought.... Then MURPHY entered the picture. The whole rest of the hull came off in 1" square pieces - done the hard way - inch by square inch.... So, you never know what awaits you till you start the project.) --------------------- Rebedding hardware: First question: Are there any signs of moisture; or water tracks on the underside of the deck at the bolts and nuts holding things in place? If yes, then a rebedding is needed - in the future. This is not a "stop everything and do it now" sort of problem, unless, of course, you are sleeping in a berth; it's raining outside; and you find water dripping in your face. That is the sort of problem that I then fix immediately. Otherwise it becomes an item on your "To Do" list for next spring. ---------------------------- For your mildew problem I'd try a mild cleaner like "Bartenders Friend" - which also does a nice job of cleaning your metal fittings. Wet the area, put some of the Bartenders Friend powder on a soft scrub brush, and go to work. It should disappear. Then rinse the area. Connie Andrei Caldararu wrote:
Thanks to all of you who offered an opinion. We went yesterday on the lake again with the M-17, and the rigging and de-rigging went much better this time. I guess it'll get better with experience.
A few more questions:
-- I am now refinishing the outside wood, which was covered in some kind of varnish which was peeling badly. What do people prefer, leave the teak oiled and not varnish it, or put a coat of Cetol on it? -- there are some spots on the deck where some small dark spots are starting to appear. I guess it is probably some light mold. Any suggestions for products to remove it, and then is there something I could put on to stunt its growth? -- how do you remove old decals (old registration numbers/registration stickers)? -- I have found at Home Depot a product called liquid fiberglass, which you pour on wood and they say it creates a coating like 60 layers of varnish. Has anyone used anything like this? I wanted to use it on the spots on the rudder where the existing varnish is peeling, as a temporary fix. In the future I was planning on stripping the entire rudder and recoating it in this stuff. -- are the hatch boards teak or regular wood? How do you strip them? -- and my old question: how urgent is it to rebed all the deck hardware? What compund do people use to seal the screws? How long a job is it? Any hints on how to do the job? My deck is in very good shape, with no soft spots, but I'd like to keep it that way. I had hoped to do this job in the fall, nowadays when I have free time I'd rather go sailing... -- is there any special maintenance that needs to be done to the two centerboard bolts? The gelcoat around them shows slight signs of rust on an area maybe 1/4" around the bolt. Also, the gelcoat around the rear bolt shows some small cracks, and has started to slightly bubble off. I could post some photos later. What needs to be done about this? The cb itself is moving very easily up and down.
Thanks,
Andrei.
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