Teak grating - Final result

Regular readers will know that I have been reconfiguring the cockpit on Mallard. The cockpit itself is complete but I was unhappy with the look of the waterproof hatches in the sole and wanted to cover these with a traditional teak grating. I started this some time back and in
between other projects have managed to get this finished up. In an earlier post I gave a brief description of how I cut the housings for the slats so this post leads on from there.

 

For most boat work you cannot go far wrong with epoxy but in this case I made change and went with PU (polyurethane) glue. This is moistened cured adhesive and I have had good results with it. Although I would probably not use it for main structural items it is great for jobs like this grating. For one it can be used straight out of the bottle and two, which was very important in my case clean up is a snap.

 

Because it a moisture cured adhesive if the wood is too dry it will not set up well. The teak had been hanging around in the warm workshop for a couple of years and the moisture content was very low so brushing on a some water to the slat before it was tapped into the glued housing made sure that the bond was good.

 

After a 10 to 15 minute period the squeeze out started to foam which is good indicator
that all is well. The open joint time is also quite short so you have to be swift with the gluing up process.

To suit my project I made up two identical slatted sections.

 

After leaving the slat sections to dry overnight a quick going over with a belt sander fitted with 120 grit belt cleans up everything perfectly. Any remaining glue can be removed with a sharp chisel, one of the advantages of the PU adhesive. You can also the tenons here which will slot into the frame.

 

The frame is made of one inch by three inch teak. Cutting the mortices with an electric morticer saved a bunch of time. I could have cut them out with a mallet and chisel but it would have taken all day. A morticer is a great tool which basically drills square holes.

 

The frame was glued up with some thickened epoxy but not before I had a trial dry run. I have found to my cost in the past that when everything is covered with sticky goo that is not the time to have to make last minute adjustments.

 

The completed grating after a final sanding up before placing in the cockpit.

 

 

Comments

[David]

Do you plan to use it un coated or do you plan to apply some type of coating (oil,cetol, etc).

[Mark]

I'll leave it natural. That is the beauty of teak it can be left to weather to a silver grey will no ill effects. The trim on the boat, handrails, toerails etc are varnished teak but the stuff you walk on is left natural as it is non skid that way and accents the varnished bits very well. Additionally if you start applying some sort of finish then you have to keep up with it which means longer spent on maintenance each year. The best maintenace for unvarnished teak is to give it a light scrubbing a couple of times each year with a not too stiff brush and plenty of clean water.

[Kelly Anderson]

Any thoughts on sanding the insides of the holes? Must have been a pretty tough part of the job.

[mark]

If you make a good job of planing up the wood and are neat n gluing the slats together the sanding to in the holes is quick and simple. Using the PU adhesive has it's advantage here as any squeeze out is easily cleaned up. It would be a different story with epoxy though and for this reason alone is not recommended for this project.

[Mary Richtet]

When sanding the little squares or it is necessary to strip old finish or adhesive from between the strps I use a Dynafile belt sander w/ 120 grit paper, or paint stir stick with 3M Gold sticky back sand paper. Both work well.
Mary Richter

[Mark]

Mary

Many thanks for the tip. Given that it is so tedious to sand the insides of the squares I try to avoid that at all costs and that is one of my reasons for using the PU adhesive. I do acknowledge that on older boats it may be necessary however. So thanks for the tip.