Teak swim platform

[Fitz]

Nipper:

Sikkens Light has no orange cast. I highly recommend it, in matte finish with 3 coats. That's what I have on all of my teak except the hatch covers and cleat bases. Because those pieces are horizontal and take a lot of abrasion and direct sun, I prefer to stain and oil them once a season.

I'm now going on my fifth year since redoing all of the teak, and I've only had to re-finish one swim platform because the Sikkens got deeply scraped with sand. The Sikkens-finished wood still looks as good as when I first refinished it. I should add, however, that I store my boat indoors on a rack when not in use, so my wood has never taken a lot of weather beating. I'm sure I would have had to refinish it by now if I routinely left it outside without a cover.

Here's a tip: after cleaning and sanding the teak (any decent teak cleaner and sufficient elbow grease will do the job), use a good, oil-based teak stain - "natural" color - before applying the Sikkens. It gives it an extra-rich look. You can see some photos of my boat in the gallery at this link:

http://www.wellcraftv20.com/gallery/album06.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck, and show us some pics. I know my thinking is completely opposite to that of MacoJoe and some others on this forum, whose opinions I respect, but I personally love teak. The abundance of beautiful wood on this boat was one of the biggest incentives that led me to buy and restore it.

Fitz