Factory teak floor

Liberty44140

i have a factory teak n holly floor that I would like to pull out and refinish this winter. Looks like it's not secured but just laid in the floor. Is it glued or secured in any way that I need to plan for in removing it? Thanks 

Liberty44140

Thanks Al. I've got a couple of dark stains that came with the boat so i wanted to strip it and sand in the garage. Can I carefully pry it out? How much of the bottom surface has glue? Sounds like I'll need to be very careful sanding and probably use a chemical on the stains and just a very light sand. Is the factory finish an oil or varnish or a blend? If it is oil I may be able to spot treat the stains and then just varnish. Thanks 

zaverin1

Do all the refinish work without removing the floor.

Liberty44140

Thanks, tried bar keepers friend on it as a paste twice and let it sit and it did nothing. I'll go get an iron. Here is what I am trying to get out.

Handymans342

You need to sand that out. If not then replace floor

Liberty44140

Well the plan was to remove and strip and sand. Then I found out its glued in. So now I hope to repair it with an iron or another chemical (read about wood bleach and lemon juice). Thinking worst case is to strip and sand in the boat? Can't imagine that I have to replace?

Handymans342

You will ruin it if you have to remove it

Liberty44140

The iron certainly helped. Not at all there but we just borrowed a neighboring boats small mini travel iron. Going to bring up our larger iron next week and also may try our steamer. The wet hot rag worked much better than dry. Still assuming worst case is strip and re do inside boat this winter 

Handymans342

Hopefully the stain is not all the way thru. Do you know what caused the staining?

Liberty44140

No, came with the boat and was really not that bad until I put a rubber mat over it and then it got worse. Got rid of the mat!

Liberty44140

Thanks Al, yes it is glossy and slippery, built in late 05 so I think it's polyurethane. Can I spot sand just the bad areas and then re coat the whole floor or will I have to take down the entire piece?

Liberty44140

Thanks again and will do! Any recommendations on the top coat?

Glassguy54

You might try Oxalic acid for removing the stain. It's an old standby of furniture refinishers. You should be able to get it at Home Depot or similar source. Follow directions and neutralize with Borax or bicarbonate of soda. You can also refer to "DIY WOOD BOAT" online and search the "How To Remove Wood Stains" topic.

Handymans342

I would strongly recommend that you use the following. 

https://www.waterlox.com/products-item/waterlox-original-UV-protection-marine-wood-sealer

Liberty44140

Glass guy- I used bar keepers friend which is a lighter version of oxyllic acid but it did nothing probably bc of the pu. I'll try it again and maybe buy real Oxyllic acid when I sand. Handy- good point, I'm familiar with Waterlox so I'll check them out. They are based here in Cleveland! 

Handymans342

Oh yeah

Liberty44140

Finally working on this now. Here is the plan:

1- Remove stairs, sand small area under stairs down to bare wood. Then put both water based and oil based polyurethane on to see which one matches best. Under stairs is a good test spot.
2- Sand stain area down to bare wood, then treat with a wood bleach. Likely will use barkeepers friend (oxyllic acid) to bleach out the stain. 
3- let dry for a few weeks, maybe a month. Then lightly sand entire floor and put 2-3 coats of polyurethane on.

As you can see my plan is not to sand the entire floor to bare wood, just the spot repair the bad spot and re coat entire floor. Concerned about the black stain coming back after re sealing. Any thoughts or concerns?

Liberty44140

No pics yet but I did remove stairs and did some testing under the stair mount. Heat gun to strip didn't go well, gouged wood. Stripper and then a very light sand worked best. Feathered the bare wood/existing varnish transition and then did half the spot with water based and half with oil based PU. No doubt, need to use oil based. Was worried about the oil over darkening the bare wood against the varnished wood but it looked fine. So next step is to strip and lightly sand the stained spot and the problem will be removing the stain in a way that it won't come back when I re polyurethane the bare spot and the entire floor. 

Liberty44140

Never closed out this thread but I did finish this last winter. I ended up completely stripping the area with the dark spot. I didnt strip the entire floor, just a 2 ft by 2 ft section around the spot. At first I used stripper that was a couple of years old and it didnt do much, solvents evaporate, but a brand new quart from Home Depot took it all off easily. I then very lightly sanded which did not do much to the stain. Had to be VERY careful sanding as the veneer is around 1/8" thick. I then tried bar keepers friend on the stain and it did nothing. I also tried some other home remedies that I read about but they didnt work either. I ended up going to Sandusky Paints in Sandusky, Ohio (same city where my boat is winter stored), they specialize in Lyman wood boats. They sold me a two part wood bleach. Mix the two parts and then let it sit for an hour. It will dry and leave crystals which then get a very light sand to clean off, almost a wipe with sand paper. I did this 4 or 5 times and the dark spot was gone! Woo hoo! Problem though, it also bleached out some of the brown teak color so I had a new discoloration. Sandusky had warned me about this and said to try polyurethane to see if it darkened the spots to disappear. They said to have mineral spirits already on a wet rag to clean off the PU. After wiping the PU on I still had the light spots so I cleaned all of the PU off with the mineral spirits so it was nice and clean. Back to Sandusky Paints with pictures and of course they were again very helpful. They sold me a small can of a gel stain which was close in color to my floor. I had to lightly sand the entire floor and then wipe on a light coat of this stain on the entire floor for consistency with the sanded spot. Worked awesome! Took the floor to just a slight shade darker than original which was fine, I like it better, filled in my discoloration, really worked awesome! They said I could do two coats of stain but I was fine with one. Didnt want to over do it. I then did three coats of satin polyurethane and the floor looked awesome this summer and held up great! If you look closely at the spot it is slightly darker overall than the rest of the floor but wood floors have plenty of inherent dark spots, if you didnt know what I did you would assume it is just a darker area of the grain, not an old water stain. The spot did not come back this summer which was great, sometimes they come back after you PU over a bleached stain. I think that leaving it sanded bare wood for almost a month may have helped to dry it out. Case closed. 

Stodge

Just makes me happy I went with Lonseal.  That seems like really thin wood to be sanding/stripping etc.  

Liberty44140

Stodge said:

Just makes me happy I went with Lonseal.  That seems like really thin wood to be sanding/stripping etc.  

Yes - you should be happy! If this didnt work out I would have bought a rug and then done Lonseal this winter. Anyone considering changing floor material should go with a PVC product like Lonseal and not wood. Not worth the work given the options out there today. But man does it look darn good