Veneering a cabin sole
Can teak veneer inlaid with maple ever match original sole boards of teak-faced ply with holly strips? Roger Hughes shows it can be done
The cost effective way of replacing expensive teak and holly stripe soleboards
Part of the remodelling of the chart table area on my 45ft (13.7m) schooner involved making a new section of floorboarding – or to use its proper nautical term, the cabin sole.
After the heavy chart table and moulding had been chopped out I discovered the floor beneath was just rough plywood, unlike the remainder of the boat, which was beautiful teak-faced ply inlaid with holly strips.
I naturally wanted any new floor to match the boat’s existing sole.
I scoured the web and other sources to find teak plywood with whitewood strips to match the floor pattern, but I was unable to locate the exact pattern anywhere. I thought that using a different pattern would look like a botch job.
The area was not large (1.37m x 0.91m) requiring just over half a standard 8ft x 4ft sheet of 19mm teak-faced ply. A full sheet would have cost in excess of $400 with delivery costs and still have no white strips – an expensive section of floor, with nearly half left over and nothing to use it for.
So I decided to try to copy the exact pattern using a different approach.
I bought the finest quality 8ft x 4ft sheet of 19mm smooth faced plywood I could find in our local hardware store. It cost $47 and they cut it to my rough size free of charge. I made an exact template using sheets of cardboard, then trimmed the plywood in my garage.
I also decided to incorporate a lifting hatch in the new sole, to give direct access to the three seacocks and a battery beneath.
I first painted all the edges and underside of the plywood with two coats of Interlux Primekote two-part epoxy primer, to seal the timber.
I then ordered an 8ft x 4ft sheet of teak
veneer. Good quality veneer is not cheap and my sheet cost $157 including shipping. This was 'quarter sawn' meaning the grain is pretty straight along the 8ft length with no swirls or knots in the pattern. It was not paper backed like most veneers, but Okoume wood backed and very suitable for flooring and flat sections, like bulkheads. I was advised to let the sheet acclimatize for 24 hours before trying to glue it to the plywood, to minimize any shrinkage or expansion once it was glued to the plywood.
The easiest method to glue veneer to a largish stiff substrate like plywood is to first copy the outline of the ply on the underside of the veneer with a felt tip pen.
With the veneer placed flat on a level floor, contact adhesive is then spread over the area within and just over the outline drawn on the panel. Then adhesive is similarly applied to the plywood.
I used Weldwood contact cement and poured it out of the tin, then spread it using a serrated trowel.
When the glue is nearly ready to bond, instead of trying to locate the large wobbly sheet of veneer accurately on top of the plywood it is easier to carefully lower the plywood on top of the veneer, to the guidelines already drawn. The teak can then be trimmed to remove it from the whole sheet, turned over and smoothed using a wide blade plasterer’s trowel. This squeezes all the air out and minimises the chance of future bubbling of the veneer.
I trimmed the edges using my handheld router with a 1⁄2in straight cutter, then edged the hatch with 1⁄4in wide teak. Then I fitted a brass lifting handle to match the rest of the hatches. The veneered board looked superb, but the job was only half done...
Fitting the strips
I somehow had to make thirteen 3⁄8in wide strips and set them into the teak veneered plywood. However, I couldn’t find any actual holly timber anywhere locally, or even on the internet. The nearest match I could find was 1⁄8in thick maple in 4ft (1.24m) long sheets.
I set up my bench saw with a new 60-tooth 10in carbide tipped blade which cuts thin timber very cleanly. Using the table saw and its guide I carefully cut thirteen strips out of the sheet, each exactly 3⁄8in wide.
The next process was to machine grooves in the teak board to take the strips. For this I used my handheld router, fitted with a 3⁄8in plunge cutter which I set to produce a 1⁄8in deep cut. I taped the end of my vacuum hose to the router to suck shavings out from the tool and prevent them building up in the groove.
I placed the router level with the centre of where I wanted the first groove, then tightly clamped a stout straight timber board to the floorboard to act as a guide.
It was then just a matter of slowly pushing the router along the guide, which
was a little heart pounding for the first cut. The result was a perfectly straight 3⁄8in wide groove down the length of the teak board. I repeated this process with a 21⁄8in space between until I had all the grooves machined.
I used Titebond premium wood glue to bond the strips into the grooves, which only needed a tap with a mallet to seat them level with the veneer. I let the glue harden for 24 hours, then lightly sanded the whole sheet with my belt sander with 120 grit.
I rolled on a first coat of Cetol clear marine wood varnish, thinned with mineral spirits, then two unthinned coats, without sanding between coats. Not only does this produce a glossy finish with thicker coverage for floor protection, but also produces a non-slip surface because the unsanded wood leaves a slightly coarse finish, but which can hardly be felt even with bare feet.
I then decided to glue a layer of thermal insulation to the underside of the board to minimize heat coming through from the engine area.
For this I used 2in (50mm) thick Rmax Thermasheath foam insulation board with aluminium foil on one face. This has an insulation rating of R6, which is the highest available for this thickness of foam. I glued it to the underneath of the floor using Liquid Nails construction adhesive, which does not melt the foam.
The new floor was then carefully slid in place and to my delight it matched the existing sole perfectly. I screwed it down and filled the countersunk holes with teak plugs. Job done!
The whole project was a back-aching sort of job with a lot of kneeling down and sawing, but well worth the effort to match the existing sole.
Using veneer was also much cheaper than buying teak faced plywood. I even had a big piece of veneer left over, which I have since used to repair other parts of Britannia’s teak joinery.