Imitation (inexpensive) Teak in the cockpit
Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:36 pm
I have been wanting to put something down on the main floor of the cockpit for a long time. The cover over the fuel tank is a bit slippery and is always a bit dirty looking.
I looked at various imitation teak products over the years. But the work effort and expense was fairly high. I have purchased some test pieces from SeaDek but they only sell custom cuts that are pricey.
I have some fenders from ultralonfoam.com and when checking the site, they have basic EVA foam sheets of their version of the teak tread. So I purchased one.
Over the last six months I have been playing with some various ideas for placing them, which minimal tools and effort. Also testing their durability. Here are my observed results.
There an ever increasing combination of options available, even on Amazon.
EVA foam is cheapest and softest. Is removable, and is not a tough as the PlasTeak and other PVC options.
PVC teak is almost as much work as real teak.
The job can be done very inexpensively and will little effort using EVA Foam teak.
The life of the imitation 'EVA foam' teaks all seem to be about the same. My guess is about 5 years, or more. Not as long a PVC.
EVA foam sheets are easily removed and replaceable.
You need a very sharp carpet knife (not a cheap box cutter or low end carpet knife blade. (I had not realized that carpet knife blades very greatly in quality)
You can't caulk seams in EVA foam
You can use Rustoleum flat black paint to create black edges by taping off the areas and painting with a small artist brush.
The adhesives on the EVA foam are all of low to medium quality, except SeaDek which is much stronger. But that is not necessarily bad, as removing the EVA foam for repairs is easy.
So from this, I decided to go with EVA foam.
I prepped the area by washing, using alcohol and wet/dry vacuuming any debris.
I started by making templates, the way custom parts are ordered. But I did not like my lack of quality edges as its hard to mimic the quality of a C&C router.
So I went to using straight lines and squared corners. I used a straight edge as a guide and cut on old plywood. This is where the sharpe carpet knife made a huge difference.
After a few tries at black caulk and teak caulk, I found black epoxy was easy. I taped off just the non-black portion on the edge and hand painted it black with an artist brush. It was pretty easy and little risk of a mess with everything taped off.
Lessons learned
I learned to be sure the knife was not at an angle (left or right) when cutting.
I learned that a super sharp knife is crucial
I made many mistakes and pulled up a few of the pieces as i did not like the cut or make a mistake.
I learned that I can not cut radius turns on corners well, even with a guide.
I learned that there is brushed and buffed teak, and that they are very different surfaces. I bought some buffed by mistake and wasted a bit of money. Try to stay with the same manufacturer and type of EVA foam for the same areas, as you will notice the difference.
Weigh down the EVA foam with zip lock bags of sand or stone, or other weights. That ensure adhesion.
Where adhesion does not happen well, water can get under the edge and cause the foam to no longer stick in places.
To fix it, a small amount of contact cement or light adhesive works well. Don't use anything you can remove later, if you make changes.
The EVA foam can be damaged by sharp objects. But it does protect the fiberglass and it removable.
More than once, I used mistakes as templates for replacements.
The EVA foam is an even better non-skid when wet
If I don't like it, it's all removable.
I have a couple flat fenders, and used some leftover EVAfoam on them to turn them into seats, when not used as fenders.
Costs and materials:
About $150/3x5 sheet. 3 sheets could do the cockpit if you are error free. (I wasn't, and used 5 sheets total, but one was the wrong type)
Rustoleum paint
Small Artist brush
Blue tape
Alcohol
Paper Towels, gloves 7 trash bags
High end carpet knife blades
Carpet knife
Metal straight edge and T-square
Old plywood or something to cut on
Band-aids and hand cleaner if you are a clutz like me. There is a reason I do system engineering and not construction.
I made this into a Google Doc for ease of access and uploading photos. Here is the link. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13G3 ... sp=sharing
I looked at various imitation teak products over the years. But the work effort and expense was fairly high. I have purchased some test pieces from SeaDek but they only sell custom cuts that are pricey.
I have some fenders from ultralonfoam.com and when checking the site, they have basic EVA foam sheets of their version of the teak tread. So I purchased one.
Over the last six months I have been playing with some various ideas for placing them, which minimal tools and effort. Also testing their durability. Here are my observed results.
There an ever increasing combination of options available, even on Amazon.
EVA foam is cheapest and softest. Is removable, and is not a tough as the PlasTeak and other PVC options.
PVC teak is almost as much work as real teak.
The job can be done very inexpensively and will little effort using EVA Foam teak.
The life of the imitation 'EVA foam' teaks all seem to be about the same. My guess is about 5 years, or more. Not as long a PVC.
EVA foam sheets are easily removed and replaceable.
You need a very sharp carpet knife (not a cheap box cutter or low end carpet knife blade. (I had not realized that carpet knife blades very greatly in quality)
You can't caulk seams in EVA foam
You can use Rustoleum flat black paint to create black edges by taping off the areas and painting with a small artist brush.
The adhesives on the EVA foam are all of low to medium quality, except SeaDek which is much stronger. But that is not necessarily bad, as removing the EVA foam for repairs is easy.
So from this, I decided to go with EVA foam.
I prepped the area by washing, using alcohol and wet/dry vacuuming any debris.
I started by making templates, the way custom parts are ordered. But I did not like my lack of quality edges as its hard to mimic the quality of a C&C router.
So I went to using straight lines and squared corners. I used a straight edge as a guide and cut on old plywood. This is where the sharpe carpet knife made a huge difference.
After a few tries at black caulk and teak caulk, I found black epoxy was easy. I taped off just the non-black portion on the edge and hand painted it black with an artist brush. It was pretty easy and little risk of a mess with everything taped off.
Lessons learned
I learned to be sure the knife was not at an angle (left or right) when cutting.
I learned that a super sharp knife is crucial
I made many mistakes and pulled up a few of the pieces as i did not like the cut or make a mistake.
I learned that I can not cut radius turns on corners well, even with a guide.
I learned that there is brushed and buffed teak, and that they are very different surfaces. I bought some buffed by mistake and wasted a bit of money. Try to stay with the same manufacturer and type of EVA foam for the same areas, as you will notice the difference.
Weigh down the EVA foam with zip lock bags of sand or stone, or other weights. That ensure adhesion.
Where adhesion does not happen well, water can get under the edge and cause the foam to no longer stick in places.
To fix it, a small amount of contact cement or light adhesive works well. Don't use anything you can remove later, if you make changes.
The EVA foam can be damaged by sharp objects. But it does protect the fiberglass and it removable.
More than once, I used mistakes as templates for replacements.
The EVA foam is an even better non-skid when wet
If I don't like it, it's all removable.
I have a couple flat fenders, and used some leftover EVAfoam on them to turn them into seats, when not used as fenders.
Costs and materials:
About $150/3x5 sheet. 3 sheets could do the cockpit if you are error free. (I wasn't, and used 5 sheets total, but one was the wrong type)
Rustoleum paint
Small Artist brush
Blue tape
Alcohol
Paper Towels, gloves 7 trash bags
High end carpet knife blades
Carpet knife
Metal straight edge and T-square
Old plywood or something to cut on
Band-aids and hand cleaner if you are a clutz like me. There is a reason I do system engineering and not construction.
I made this into a Google Doc for ease of access and uploading photos. Here is the link. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13G3 ... sp=sharing