Caulking Applied

Reggie started yesterday morning by buzzing off the tops of the screw hole plugs with a small angle grinder.  He was fast and made it look easy, but I could see how a slip of the hand would have resulted in a scored the decking.

Then he applied the caulking (SIS 440 from "Teakdecking Systems") at the bow by hand using a paint scraper. I had expected him to spend hours carefully masking off the decking so that the caulking went only in the joints but Reggie said that masking is required only when repairing an existing deck.  With a new deck there is the luxury of being able to get the caulking all over the decking in the knowledge that it will be removed during the sanding process.

In the cockpit with its longer runs he used a pneumatic tool for pushing the material out of the cartridge.

Reggie finished the caulking at about noon on Friday and wanted to give the material 2 days to dry before resuming his work which fit in nicely with the advent of the weekend.  I expect to see him again on Monday morning.

I had already provided an extra 4 cartridges of the caulking but Reggie could see that he would still be short, which perplexed him because he's usually very good at estimating quantities.  He soon discovered the problem. In order to avoid a nominal price rise the company has simply put 10%-15% less material in the cartridges.  He realized this when he glanced into the back of the cartridge and saw that the pushing plate was 2" further up than usual.  Some bright MBA must have thought that one up but it could wreak havoc to a quotation.  Reggie felt bad about socking the extra cost to me, but I had no problem with it at all - and he'll be prepared for future quotations.  So far I have supplied 12 extra cartridges at $21 USD each.

I had long chats with Reggie while he worked and learned more about teak.  He said that teak must be installed in a humidity of no more that 15%. . I replied that this would be very difficult to achieve in a place like Port Townsend and he said that from that perspective La Paz is one of the best places in the world for the installation of teak decking.  He once had to re caulk a boat that had very recently been caulked in California at great expense.  In the dry climate of La Paz the wood shrank leaving gaps along the sides the caulking.  However, if a boat teaked in La Paz were moved to, say, humid Seattle, the resultant expansion of the teak would squeeze the caulking out a bit but the seal would be maintained.  If the boat were then bought back to dry La Paz the wood would shrink and the caulking would settle back down into the joint.

I asked him about the care and feeding of teak.  Specifically, is using teak oil OK?  The response was a definite No, unless only a tiny bit is applied only on the wood with a rag.  The problem is that the oil will soak into the wood, work its way to the edges, then break the seal of the caulking.  He saw a guy who had used a lot of oil on his large brand new boat find that the caulking started to come out when he washed down the deck.  In front of Reggie the man pulled out a long run of caulking as though it were a piece of cord.  The deck was basically ruined because even by using gallons of acetone he'd never be able to get all of the oil out.  (The outcome?  The man copped out by giving the boat back to the bank.)

There is a material that can be used that needs frequent replacement but is easy to apply.  I don't want to get into a binding and possibly expensive maintenance routine, so I'll probably leave the teak au naturel.