Teak floor decking for the cabin
By Ryan on Saturday 21 August 2010, 20:26 - Permalink
My father has generously offered to make the new cabin floorboards out of teak.
Here is the first of his series of posts involving working with this material, and trying different construction methods.
Lil' Mule II's cabin floorboards will be Made in America!
My dad is currently in the process of perfecting the teak construction techniques for these (shown in the photos here). I will be relaying his photos and construction comments here, in the event that they will help out anyone else looking to make teak decks. Below are his comments:
Here are photos of the sample for the deck. I am trying different techniques all in the same sample.
tile spacers, used to maintain perfect spacing:
remember, the wood planks are covered with silicone tape:
My dad is currently in the process of perfecting the teak construction techniques for these (shown in the photos here). I will be relaying his photos and construction comments here, in the event that they will help out anyone else looking to make teak decks. Below are his comments:
Here are photos of the sample for the deck. I am trying different techniques all in the same sample.
- Large sample has clear tape on the face to protect the wood from stains. Small sample is no tape.
- Most of the caulking was put in with the caulk gun and then pressed in with a squeegee, some was caulked in and left and then sanded down latter. I found that when I squeegeed it it it tended to depress below the surface of the wood in some places. We'll see if when we sand it it comes back to flush.
- I used ceramic tile floor spacers to get and keep the required 3/16" gap. I just left them in and caulked over them. They are not very thick.
- Caulk dries with a film in two hours and then hard to 1/8" deep in two days. I do not know haw long to cure all the way through.
- You can see that I removed one of the tape skins already before the caulk skimmed over. I will wait a few hours until after the skim sets and try a few more. Then I will try the rest after it is set hard. It would be great if the sample that did not have the tape works as putting on the tape is a pain and time consuming.
- Oh, forgot to mention that it is sitting on waxed paper so that bottom does not stick to wood.
tile spacers, used to maintain perfect spacing:
remember, the wood planks are covered with silicone tape:
Comments
It is obvious to me that detail is required to make a long- lasting, beautiful floor. Your descriptions w photos are great.