The Cockpit Project: Installing the Teak Decking

The synthetic teak was waiting for us when we arrived back home. The package included 8 tubes of M1 polyether adhesive, a serrated trowel and 13 precut pieces of the teak material. They had sent me a first article back in August that didn't come close to fitting properly, but we worked out the problems and they remade that part and shipped it along with the rest of the pieces. The first thing I did was check fit each one on the deck, and they all fit reasonably well. 

Once I was sure all the pieces fit, I taped off each recess, applied the adhesive and installed each piece one at a time. The finished cockpit looks a lot better than the weathered teak look that we had before. The total cost for the teak, adhesive and trowel was $1,009.00. I added two rolls of tape, some sandpaper, a carpet roller and a little acetone so the total material cost added up to about $1,040.00. It took about 20 hours spread out over a week to install all the pieces. 

I started with 3M #2050 masking tape which worked well. When I ran out of it I tried  #2090 blue tape. The lower tack allowed the M1 adhesive to penetrate between the tape and the teak which I had to sand off after it was cured. 

I applied the adhesive with a caulking gun then spread it with the trowel.

The adhesive was evenly spread across the seat, with a thick bead of it around the perimeter.

I used the carpet seam roller to press the teak into the adhesive. To get it to lay perfectly into the recess, I started rolling in the center and worked toward the edges, squeezing out any excess adhesive.

I pulled the tapes as soon as possible. The temperatures hovered near 100 degrees every day while I was doing the installation, so the adhesive started curing almost instantly. 

The finished installation looks good. The black "caulking lines" are aligned within about 1/8" from piece to piece.

Of course the project wouldn't be complete without new cockpit cushions. 

We're pretty happy with the final results and now that Plasteak has accurate digital files for the teak inserts, it should be easy for any Beneteau 423 to be fitted with synthetic teak. Feel free to call on me if you have any questions about the material or the process.