The Steamboating Forum

What experience do folks have with various woods for decking and seating surfaces. I am not looking to have a "furniture" grade build, but would prefer to have some natural wood on some surfaces.

I will likely use mahogany for the gunwales/rubrails and white painted "beadboard/wainscoating" for the vertical surfaces in the boat. My intent at this point is to paint the floor. Any recommendations on suitable woods for the decks and seats ?

Also, I had not intended to set it up with a canopy to start with. Is there a physical reason for having a canopy on a steam launch other than shelter from the sun etc ? Do you need some "protection" from the smoke stack emissions ?

thanks

jon

JonRiley56 wrote:What experience do folks have with various woods for decking and seating surfaces. I am not looking to have a "furniture" grade build, but would prefer to have some natural wood on some surfaces.

I will likely use mahogany for the gunwales/rubrails and white painted "beadboard/wainscoating" for the vertical surfaces in the boat. My intent at this point is to paint the floor. Any recommendations on suitable woods for the decks and seats ?

Also, I had not intended to set it up with a canopy to start with. Is there a physical reason for having a canopy on a steam launch other than shelter from the sun etc ? Do you need some "protection" from the smoke stack emissions ?

thanks

jon

If you paint the floor, be careful about making it slick. A little water and steam oil on an smooth painted floor may prove treacherous.
My boat has oiled mahogany seats and floors about 1/2" thick. Deck is painted canvas stretched tight over 1/4" plywood, rub rails, etc are mahogany. If one is not looking for a yacht finish, I find oiling the wood with a combination of pine tar, turpentine, linseed oil and a splash of varnish does a nice job of keeping the wood in good shape, and is easily refreshed and/or repaired when something goes wrong.

- Bart

I'll second what Bart says about slipperiness. I would either use some of those glue down anti-skid strip for steps or bathtubs (kind ugly) or add one of the many anti skid additives to the paint.

One of the coolest home jobs I've seen was based on mixing really coarse salt with the last coat of paint and, after it dried, lightly hand sand it and then hose it down. The salt went away and left a fearsome finish. All of them wear away with time. But cracking your noggin or shins isn't fun.

Richard Burleigh used teak or mahogany door skins for his deck on the "Phoenix". He used a saw to cut evenly spaced narrow, shallow troughs and then painted them black to make it appear as though it was a planked and caulked deck.

One could do something similar but use strips of something like skateboard grip tape (about $10 for a 30+"x 8+" sheet to cover a good sized skateboard) on the surface or slightly recessed to give a similar appearance with some grip for safety. The grip tape will take a heck of beating and is nearly impossible to remove if applied properly

Another related question. My decks are made from 1/2 inch Lauan Plywood, (moisture resistant underlayment plywood) and were coated with epoxy, the same stuff that covers the hull, but no fiberglass cloth. These small decks look great as coated with epoxy, but have no UV protection.

I then cleaned the epoxy with Acetone, and coated the decks with UV resistant Helmsman Urethane Varnish. This looked good for a few months, but now I see it is becoming detached from its bond to the epoxy coating in some places. I can loosen pieces of the Urethane from the deck with my fingernail in some spots, other areas are firmly attached. I want to strip the Urethane off, without harming the epoxy finish. Acetone does not hurt the epoxy, but it also does not loosen the Urethane.

Does anyone know how I should proceed?

Probably wind up sanding it down to the epoxy. These polyurethanes are not good to use, sounds like it's getting worse too. One would think that should be a satisfactory finish procedure. Polyurethane directly over wood will usually crack, because it cannot flex with the wood, bout over epoxy, seems it would have held up. I know Epifanes over Epoxy works well.

I think West system has an epoxy with UV protection, seems like it was 207 something? I used it on the Chris Craft. Then over that came several coats of Epifanes.

-Ron

Many epoxies release amines when curing. In my experience, it's best to wet sand with 600+ grit paper before varnishing over epoxy. The varnish will fill the scratches, and leaves a excellent bond. Some polyurethanes seem to have problems over epoxy; varnish works very well indeed. You want the traditional "spar varnish" rather than polyurethane directly over the epoxy.

- Bart

There is some sort of gooey crud that comes to the surface when West Epoxy cures (amines perhaps?) and it plugs up sandpaper like crazy. I find that a good scrubbing with soap and water before sanding is well worth while. I have painted over epoxy with both oil based and water based enamels and with spar varnish with no failures. Well, I take that back. Two years in Baja sun will eat anything less resistant than baked enamel!

Mike

Mike, my experience with other two-part epoxys says that you should check your mix carefully if you're having that problem. Too much hardener AND too little will both sometimes cause this. Having said that, you still usually finish up throwing the first sanding sheet away very quickly.

Maybe. But if I remember correctly, West even mentions it. It feels like soft car wax and almost all of it washes off with a hose.

I've been using West System stuff on my sailboat now for twenty-five years and have yet to have a failure that wasn't due to my negliogence such as doing some deck repairs and letting them set in the tropical sun for a year without UV protection (duh!).

Mike