Flexiteek

I've mentioned this product in the past I know but today was the first chance that I got to get my hands on a bit of Flexiteek. I had seen it at various boat shows on boats and always thought that it looked pretty good, almost indistinguishable from freshly sanded teak but I am a die hard woodworker so I had always thought that it would take a lot to get me away from the proper stuff.

The picture above shows a section of the Flexiteek laying on a panel made with the real stuff and apart from the fact that one has a white caulking and the real teak a black there is actually not much to tell the two apart, the color is very similar. Actually the texture when you rub your hand over it feels about the same too and I have to say that from 10 feet away very few people would be able to tell the difference.

Flexiteek is made from PVC, comes in a variety of widths as complete panels and is about a quarter inch thick.  Today was the first really warm day of the year here in the NE and I left the panel outside in the sun while I collected all the tools together to stick it down. With the sun warming the material it became very pliable and I could see this would be of benefit if one was fitting this in a sprung deck arrangement apparently it can also be warmed with a hair dryer or hot air gun too.  I could see that it would be easier to handle than long lengths of timber.

I glued a 18 inch square section to a scrap of 3/4 inch plywood using the adhesive supplied with the Flexiteek then to finish it off I ran a bead of the caulking around the edge just as I would do if I were fitting this stuff for real on a boat.

Then I smoothed the edge with an old chisel before peeling off the masking tape, leaving a nice neat edge.

So here is the complete panel. I am going to be conducting some trials with this panel which I am going to leave out in the weather alongside a similar panel made from real teak wood. It will be interesting to see how things develop - I'll keep you posted but as things stand right now I think that I will be looking long and hard at using Flexiteek instead of real wood in the cockpit area of my new motor boat.

Comments

[Chris Tomasini]

Happy to have found your site while researching different decking options for my cockpit. Anxious to hear about the results of the weather testing.

[Mark]

Chris

I'll let you know the results on the weathering trial in due course. Presently the Flexiteek seems to holding up very well.

Mark

[megan]

Hello- interested to hear how you liked the Flexiteek. Considering doing the whole deal on my 33'Cheoy Lee...
Wondering especially how they make the rounded edges.