Swim platform half done

As promised, we spent an hour each evening so far this week applying a coat of Sikkens Cetol Marine Light to the bottom of the swim platform  (That's the part you'll never see unless you are diving behind the boat.) That side seemed like a good place to experiment with very old, weathered teak.

The first coat disappeared into the teak leaving some surface color behind.  The second coat built up nicely. At that point, after allowing the second coat to dry overnight inside our heated basement, we noted that the Sikkens had turned up the grain on the teak to the point where it felt very rough. We hand-sanded the entire underside of the platform with 100-grit sandpaper and, after vacuuming up the loose stuff,  wiped off the residue with clean wet cloths.  We took one pass at each section of the teak, wiping up the sanding dust, and then moved on to a new clean cloth. It took eight passes to get the teak clean.

Nerd note: We re-purpose old white athletic socks to use for things like this and for polishing. They work great, although we don't know why we ever bought them. We never wear white socks.

With the teak really clean, we applied and third coat and then, each evening, a fourth and fifth. Looks OK at this point and tomorrow, we'll flip it over and start the process again on the top, the side you'll see when it's mounted on the boat.

The top side may require a little more work, since that's the side that has been exposed to sun salt and foot traffic all these years.

The edge, which you can see in the photo, looks just OK. It's fairly smooth but the bungs show, especially in the back. We'd still like to have some trim for that surface but since we can't find anything nice, I guess this is the way it's going to be.