Teak - oil or not?

[Bluewater Lady Charters]

Once you have it pretty clean, I use Krazy Clean and a soft brush once a week.

[MakoMike]

I don't have much, but what I have I do oil. Looks too pretty not to.

[terpheels]

1 of teaks natural attributes is that it not slippery in its virgin form. Put some crap on top of it and it can become slicker than snot. I gave up on foo-foo on my covering boards on my old boat and became a bareback rider. Every so often I'd clean it w/a pressure sprayer then scrub w/a scrub brush and a light clorox mix. You could stand on it in a downpour and be sure footed. Just my .02.

[74Formula233]

1 of teaks natural attributes is that it not slippery in its virgin form. Put some crap on top of it and it can become slicker than snot. I gave up on foo-foo on my covering boards on my old boat and became a bareback rider. Every so often I'd clean it w/a pressure sprayer then scrub w/a scrub brush and a light clorox mix. You could stand on it in a downpour and be sure footed. Just my .02.

I've always let it turn silver.

Yeh it looks beautiful finished, but I don't want to be a slave to teak. If I had a choice between teak (and having to keep it finished) or no teak, I'd choose no teak.

However, having had teak in some forms, I never bothered finishing it. Silver is a beautiful color too

[Shutterbug]

Terp, totally agree. Fortunately my teak is all vertical. I missed a good day yesterday, so I hear.

[anthony]

I have teak covering boards and cockpit sole...I leave mine natural. You can use the chemical cleaners to get it good and clean the first time (only use if necessary, it raises the grain which leads to sanding which means you are losing teak) and then use a brightener. Once clean, you can keep it that way by scrubbing with a soft brush and a mixture of sudsy amonia and ajax or sudsy amonia and tide crystals. You should finish off with the brightener after most every cleaning. I try to clean mine once a month or so and I seem to be able to keep up with it at that rate.

...and it's the best non-skid you can buy.

[74Formula233]

...and it's the best non-skid you can buy.

Which, in the case of flooring/decking at least in a boat, was most likely its intended purpose, no?

I doubt it was meant to be oiled once put on the floor/deck of a boat

[Finesse]

This is one of those personal preference things ......

But for me .... NATURAL NATURAL NATURAL !!!! I know we alked about this last weekend

I'm with terp and anthony....We've had some products on the deck that have absolutly sucked !!! The crap even held dirt ....
I forgot what you said about how the diesel exhaust affected the swim platform??
There are a couple of very light teak dressings that I've used that were not to bad IMO. I think one that I had used in the past was Teak Wonder ... Very light, thin dressing and leaves the wood very light in color. It was generally left to me how I wanted to do it ( I had to take care of it ..so it was my problem anyway) .... So I left it au natural !!! To me there is nothing like the light blond of a teak deck and covering boards, made the Bertram and Viking look real nice ...... In general ... before fish land on it get it wet ... helps to keep it clean. Also stiff brushes will pull the pulp right out of the boards ... Like anthony mentioned ..raising the grain..... Take it easy and finesse it and all's good

[Glenn W]

was my problem anyway) To me there is nothing like the light blond of a teak deck and covering boards, made the Bertram look real nice ......

Sombich--- you mean something makes a Bertie look good?

[Squidnation]

Fiberglass over it and paint it with awlgrip. You'll thank me every spring