Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Teak Companionway Trim Replacement

Another catch-up post on work that I did in my shed during the winter. 

The teak surrounding the companionway that the hatchboards fit in was in rough shape from the day we bought the boat. Now that I am repainting the decks it was time to fix the problem. The trim was so splintered and worn away that the hatch board rattled constantly.

So, $185.00 worth of teak later I was ready to start. Yes, if you look in the following picture you will see twice as much teak as necessary to replace the trim. I tend to make mistakes no matter how much I measure and measure again and, well, that’s where I’ll leave it.

Original teak trim and new stock: 

Teak Stock

After taking lot’s of measurements and templates I practiced quite a bit using 2X4 pine stock. I’m no woodworker and this was my first important project where I used the Ryobi table saw I bought off Craigslist. And sure enough, I made a mistake with one of the trim pieces. That went into the teak leftover bin for future projects.

Teak stock, table saw, original trim and pine test piece:

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After much sawing, routing and dado cuts the trim was just about ready for dry-fitting. One of the tricky parts is that sailboats pretty much don’t have a square/straight line in them so each piece needed to be hand carved and fitted to the companionway. Although my final shaping was not perfect and some of the joints were not perfectly flush they came out pretty close and will have to do. I’m not trying to build a Hinckley.

Old and new trim places waiting for installation after the deck is repainted:

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While I was working on the trim project I did some side work on the teak handrails for the companionway and the exterior cabin top handrails. I put around 10 to 15 coats of gloss varnish depending on location of the piece.  The interior overhead handrails received 12 coats of satin finish varnish. All are now sitting in the rafters of my shed waiting for installation. Some where in the future...

Cabin top and companionway handrails:

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Interior handrails drying:

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