Teak decks

Idea:

My 18's decks are soft forward of rear beam. Where the skipper sits. I have been chatting with ppl and researching here and beachcats dot com and the rest of google for different repair techniques for about two weeks now. The drill and infuse method is the most popular and recommended way to go about it by far. I have also read about those who have cut out the whole section of deck and repaired with new backing, core and all. My question is ...

How feasible would it be to cut out the outer laminate and debonded core, with a router, and insert new teak deck inlays, glued to the original inner laminate with epoxy? Possibly vacbagging new deck to inner laminate.

The question is, is the inner laminate strong enough to support the new deck at it edges? I think it would look great.

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Rick Matos
Miami, FL

Hobie 18

the inner laminate is very thin. one layer of a thin cloth, not matte. there are 2 common problems with your deck.
1) the outer layer, foam, and inner layer have delaminated, in which the drill and infuse method would do a lot of good to bring back structural integrity.
2) the outer layer, foam, and inner layer have delaminated, and due to lack of strength, therefore allowing much flexing, the inner layer has cracked. you can't just "drill and fill" this type of damage.
This of course is the problem with my boat, a 1978. So, my plans are to drill and epoxy where the gel coat is cracked. this will help to keep out any further moisture. then over the winter to invert the hull, (port side, the port hulls seem to have a lot of problems in this age group.) then grind to fresh fibercloth, and put a runner up the middle, front to back, with fresh fiberglass and resin to adhere. i have installed rear inspection cover/openings, to help with this process. I would run 2-3 stringers across the decks underneath, but with the distance involved, and the floatation, it will be just too much for that kind of repair. i may be able to get one in there in front of the rear crossbar, but i think the multi layers of glass, resin, and wood spar will be enough.
so, i guess to answer your question, i don't know how good you are with teak and glass. i have the plugs from the covers i put in. i could send pics, or a sample of it. NOTE: if you have a "redline" boat, your structure is different than mine.

Just to build on what raisehull said, the inside skin is only about one ply thick, so very thin and would not likely give you enough structure to support the teak while you're bonding it in. However, the foam core does not go all the way to the edge of the hull, it stops at about the same location where the non-skid stops. So you have approximately 1" of solid glass all around the perimeter of the deck. I think you would need to bond a "tab" to this material so you could tie in the new deck. Probably bond 1 or 2 plys of 8oz glass to the inside of the new deck. Then epoxy the new deck to the tab. And finally glass the top of the deck into the hull.

It sounds like a cool project if you can get it worked out. I think the trickiest part would be getting the teak to match the existing curve of the deck.

sm

I could see this working, I have built a few wood kayaks, canoes and one wooden cat, a 73 Hobby cat from plans. Matching the curve of the deck would not be to hard, just make a few forms and then use teak strips to make your wooden parts. take a look at some of the canoe or kayak building videos on you tube for an idea. You would need to fiberglass the inside and outside of the wooden parts before you put them on the decks of you boat. If you look at a strip build kayak its built a lot like a hobie except the wood acts as the core instead on the foam. the epoxy and glass is what gives them there strength.

maybe an idea would be to cut out the bad deck in the shape you want you wood parts to look like and then make your wood parts with a lip to fit over the deck of your cut outs, it would be raised up a bit that way but if you round the edges should not cause any problems. They make thickners to add to epoxy so you could use that to bond the wooden parts in to the hulls.

One more Idea is if you cut all the way threw the deck you could also build up a lip on the inside of the areas you cut out to help hold up your wooden parts. this could be done with some wood and epoxy. Thats what I did when I made hatches in my kayaks. just use some thin marine grade plywood and make a lip that sticks out an inch or so, sand inside of deck and use thicken epoxy to bond the wood lip on.

One more thing, I have seen some info on here and I say use thickend epoxy but maybe some of the other resins like the poleyester might bond better , thats somthing I am not sure of but am sure some one on here knows.

Jay