Refinishin wood swim platform

Stain?

strip the stain and use teak oil.

John,
Follow the strip, clean and oil advice above. There are plenty of teak kits available at marine supplies. Also plenty of threads here on the process. Cleaning the teak is key then oil.

The PO of you boat did not do you any favors. You never want any "hard" finish on Teak.

use some wire brush to remove the finish and then lots of teak oil...

I used the same Watco and mine looks perfectly new. Also, not sure if someone else posted but I used my pressure sprayer and it required absolutely no scrubbing/stripping to get it down to the natural wood. Just make sure you spray it off a few times and get it real wet before you begin. Definately take the extra 5-10 minutes to take it off the back first. So much easier and cleaner than doing it while its on the back of your boat!

Bret,
To do a real good job, I suggest getting the wood off the boat. Unscrew it from the brackets then attack both sides.

Some will advise against it but I'm in favor of using a pressure washer with the cleaning/brightening process. It really gets down into the pores of the wood as well as between the slats. If you do use one, be very careful with the high pressure getting too close to the wood and tearing into the grain. Experiment on the back side.

Although my platform is not teak, I do prefer the hard finish.
Reason being, with outdoor storage and the constant battle with oiling.

Just one good coat of polyurethane lasts all season.
More than one coat makes it too slick, thus slipping and cracking an ankle.

8122pbrainard wrote: Bret, To do a real good job, I suggest getting the wood off the boat. Unscrew it from the brackets then attack both sides. Some will advise against it but I'm in favor of using a pressure washer with the cleaning/brightening process. It really gets down into the pores of the wood as well as between the slats. If you do use one, be very careful with the high pressure getting too close to the wood and tearing into the grain. Experiment on the back side.

Thanks Pete, I have the quick disconnect pins so removing will not be an issue. I also own a 2600psi pressure washer so I will go that route using one of the delicate tips to start and see how that goes. I've got a couple places where the wood is coming apart. The dowel rod in the center rear edge is gone and will need fixing. Also, was moored on the St. John's over Labor Day this past summer and one of the behemoth cruisers came by and ended up busting a couple screws out of the rear starboard side slats with his monster wake. I'd like to repair the original rather then get an aftermarket. It can be saved.   

Brad, looks beautiful! Nice work.

Keeganino wrote: Its funny how so many people do the same wrong thing. Seems perfectly logical to slap some polyurethane finish on there to protect it and make it look nice. Kind of like how lots of people assume that you should use treated lumber to make stringers.

Keegan,
It's good you didn't include everyone in the above group. To many like woodworkers and wooden boat owners, the above is not logical!

Also, people that do not know, should not be going into one of the home improvement places and be asking one of the sales “associates” advice!

wow, Doc that is much darker in color than what I'm use to seeing. Looks good.

I've been re-oiling mine for the last several weeks.Since i have it off of the boat right now, Ive been concetrating on the bottom side of the deck since it doesnt get much attention at other times. So far I have about 10 coats of oil on the bottom. Time to start the top now.

So RJ, our resident Babe's rep, put me onto the Starbrite Teak Oil sealer after I noticed how good his platform looked. We were talking this weekend and his is going on year 5 and looks great, so I decided to go that route. Here are the pictures of the process.

The Start

Mine was varnished to start with so I dry sanded with 60, then 120 and finally 220:

Then washed with Murphy's Oil Soap:
Then let dry over night, applied Starbrite oil sealer, let dry for 2 or 3 days and then wet sanded with 220:

then a wash with Murphy's plus an overnight dry and then a second coat of Starbrite oil sealer:

Another 2 or 3 days of drying and then wet sanded with 400 and a wash with Murphy's, dry over night and then a final coat of oil sealer:

Here is a picture with out the flash:

And a picture of the Starbrite Oil Sealer:

RJ did 220 after his first coat, 400 after his second coat and 1000 after his third coat finishing with 4 coats. His platform is very slippery so, I stopped at 400 with 3 coats. We'll see how it holds up. The directions RJ sent me said to go all the way to 2000 sandpaper, for a furniture like finish. So if your going for looks and not functionality (read too slippery to stand on), then I guess you could take it that far... But for me with the kids, we'll see how this holds up.

OMH, 3 coats probably wasn't enough. I wouldn't just shoot for a specific # of coats. Keep putting it on until it just won't take any more. I think I did about 7 coats, the last few I let dry for a week before adding more. It lasted pretty much all summer.

Hey Steve, thats interesting. Like I said, RJ has had it on his platform and it looks good 4 years later (this will be year 5).

What did you not like about (what signs should I look for). You know the one thing it said you should do on the can, is cure it in the sun, which there is very little of that around here this time of year. So maybe I will wet sand and do one more coat on the next sunny day.