Nancy,

I have contemplated replacing all of my teak and holly sole on my boat; however, after checking the prices I decided to stick with what I have and lightly sand and refinish it and it came out looking pretty good. A friend of mine replaced some of his sole with nu-teak and I must say it looked very nice and quite easy to maintain.

+1 for what Glenn said. I did ours last year and they came out fine. I sanded the backs of them fairly aggressively and put a couple of coats of non-water based finish there to try to seal them from water intrusion in future.

I had some gloss Cetol clear finish laying around and I used that on the bottom, it is a solvent based exterior finish and thus it is very water resistant. I put on 2 coats and I let it dry for a long time (all winter) before I put the boards back in. Probably any good quality marine exterior solvent based finish will be fine.

On the top I used the factory finish which is the Target coatings satin water based finish, I think it was the EM2000 but if you contact Target they will tell you what coating is the correct one to use and can direct you to a retailer. They were very good to deal with and they knew what Catalina had used and what is the correct current finish product to use to be compatible. Our boat is a '95 though so Catalina might have used something else on later model boats.

As Glenn said, a light sanding was all the top needed. We had some significant scratches that were into the wood, not much you can do about that just feather the edges out with sandpaper and put a couple extra coats on there and sand again before refinishing the entire board.

I had to make a new section for the piece in the vee berth area. To do that I had to get a 4x8 section of teak & holly and laminate it to a thinner piece of plywood to get the riight depth. That left me with some spare wood. This year, the piece on the port side side went bad (ugly water penetration regardless of the fact that I sealed and fiberglassed the underside & edges).

Naturally that piece is too big to be made from what I have left.

I'mm in the process of replacing all my sole boards with vinyl t & H.. Have to make up plywood pieces and seal them, then glue the vinyl. The vinyl alone should cost about $550.

My loss may be someone elses gain though. After I have this done, I'll still have some raw wood left, and some of my pieces are still in good condition. I'd rather get them to someone weho wants them rather than just discard them. I wont give them up until I have the new stuff in place though, and that will be early next year. If someone is in the New Jersey area and wants some of it, let me know. I wont be able to ship it though.

Chuck can you tell the name of the Vinyl product you are using?

Nancy:

There have been many postings on cabin sole replacement and coatings issues, which you may want to search.

As for the coating on top, I found the Target water based product which Catalina uses to be a little dull in appearance, for my tastes. I used instead Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish, a top-of-the-line varnish intended for interior use. Application was straightforward. I varnished the sole in place, although I removed all the screws and pulled up the teak panels enough to put masking tape around all the edges. I roughed up the surface with a maroon pad from 3M, wiped down with denatured alcohol, then applied two coats of the varnish. Because its varnish, you need dry conditions and plenty of time to dry. It came out beautiful, and still looks great after two years. Unlike gloss varnish, the rubbed effect resists scratching and is pretty tough.

--Nelson

Jason... It's called LONSEAL specifically LONWOOD T& H no 74TS. It comes in satin and gloss. I'mplanning on the satin.

You can check it out at [url]www.worldpane.com[/url].

What I am contemplating is this:

Rather than have large floorboards with a veneer or vynil glued to plywood, sealed, and sitting on the interior liner, I am considering just gluing the vynil Teak and Holly product directly to the interior liner (the white fiberglass under the floor boards).

I will cut out the areas where the liner has holes or access points, and make reinforced lift-out pieces just for these small areas (flooring glued to a small piece of plywood and with a lift-ring installed).

This would remove the wood portion of the flooring, so less maintenance. It would remove quite a few pounds of plywood from the floors, always a good side effect. Lastly, when I want to get at one of the small access points under the floor, I wouldn't need to clear everything out of the way, remove all the screws, and lift a big 4' long floorboard. I could just pull out the little 1' cover over the access point in question.

I figure if I glue the flooring down with something like sikaflex, it will still be removable in future without resorting to power tools.

Anyone thought about this or tried it themselves?

Jason... with 1/4" ply and the vinyle, the pieces lay just even with the deck in the cabin sole "cut outs". If you used just the vinyle, the places where the current boards are would be 1/4" lower than the surrounding areas of the deck.

You're correct but I can't really think of a good reason why this is a problem? The surrounding 'glass areas are pretty small.

Jason...

I'd just want it flush so there is no chance of tripping in rough seas when moving about the cabin or at night in the dark at a mooring.

One thing I am going to try is to use velcro tabs on the cormners of the new boards so I don't have to screw them in and can pull them up easily. We'll see if that does the job or if it raises the boards above the surrounding areas and causes the same problem in the reverse.... raised floor boards above the surrounding areas..