swim platform maintenance

They say to wipe the excess off but I rarely do. If you want to anytime now would be fine.

Nice lookin sport Cris.

This is a suggestion for cleaning your dock but would probably work well for a swim platform. I have a side line where I do dock and deck restorations and this is the best method of cleaning a gray nasty weathered dock.

You need a pump up garden type sprayer and a pressure washer for dock work, but a strong pressure garden hose might be all thats needed for a swim platform.

First you need "oxy clean" powder or simliar product. Use about 1/2 cup per gallon in WARM water in the garden sprayer put in a good squirt of Dawn dish soap. Stir it up good. Then wet your wood( no joke intended) with your hose and let the excess run off. After this spray it with the oxy clean and WAIT 20 mins. You need to keep it damp during the 20 min wait so just keep respraying it lightly or mist it with the garden hose, but the 20 min wait is important. Then lightly pressure wash it. The results will be amazing, but it will lighten up the wood. I don't know if this will work on wood that has teak oil on it but it sure will clean up a badly weathered dock.
The mixture has to be used in a hour or two so wait until your ready to do it to mix it up. You might want to do a test spot on the teak to see if it works and dosent harm the teak. If you do your dock that pressure treated wood just go do it.

Roy

I am in the middle of re-doing my platform and it is amazing how much better it looks just from cleaning it - i just wet sanded it tonight but it didnt feel like it was accomplishing much so I wondered if i needed to "wet sand" it with soap and water between each application of oil and what effect would "dry sanding" have instead? Thanks

Hey Pete,
I was following the directions from earlier in the post. There is a link that says to sand after the oil dries on each application with a finer grit paper each time.   

Don't they get kind of slippery when you wet sand or dry sand with fine grit?

TRBenj wrote: Pete, dont knock it til you try it! I used this method on my '90 platform- came out very nice. Ill snap some pics this weekend. GCarbone, definitely wetsand with the proper paper if attempting that technique... dont attempt the finer grits dry.

gcarbone wrote: i just wet sanded it tonight but it didnt feel like it was accomplishing much so I wondered if i needed to "wet sand" it with soap and water Thanks

I agree that wet sanding is a common technique for sanding or even applying oil finishes. I've used it many times on "danish" oils but you use the oil as a wetting agent and not soap/water. The oil and the sanding dust creates a slurry that will go down into the pores of open grain wood smoothing it all out.

gcarbone wrote: So it sounds like we have the right compromise - wet sand but instead of water like i used last night, start using the teak oil?

No!

gcarbone wrote: With the water it did create a slurry that just seemed to make a mess, but if I used the oil then that would be a good solution. I will follow the directions of that link for the rest. Thanks guys. I will try to get a picture up when it's done

The mess that occured was because you didnt allow the oil to fully dry before wet sanding. Water isnt making the mess, the oil is. This time of year, it will take a full week for the oil to dry- maybe a bit less if you put it in the sun this weekend!

If you follow the plan to the letter, you will end up with a nice looking piece.

I used TRBenj's teak process. It took me about 3 weeks to finish. I think it turned out very nice. Cant wait to see how it holds up. I added one step thow. I scrubbed with a brush after each sanding to get any sediment that may have settled into the wood grain.

Make sure you prep the teak real well- use a stiff brass brush with that cleaner to get all the mildew out. Make sure you rinse it well afterwards! Make sure its completely dry before applying oil, and then completely dry again before wetsanding between coats. I did my platform last summer and it took me a few months!

I live just west of Boston and work about 20 min north of the city. I ski with a few guys from here a few miles west of work, but I keep my boats in CT (where Im originally from). Whereabouts in NH are you?

bumping an oldie but goodie to ask a question: has anyone ever tried Sikkens? I was talking to the guy at west marine and we're standing in front of a wall of star brite products and he was swearing up and down that this Sikkens stuff is the best. I'm not the kind of guy who inherently trusts the opinion of strangers so I thanked the guy for help but told him I was going to do some more research before buying a $45 can of a product I had never heard of.

Thoughts? Anyone use this before? Or should I just stick with the star brite?

Whenever I walk into West Marine, I always get a little bit of that Used Car Lot feeling. I still go, because they have a lot of stuff you might need, and you don't have to wait for it to come in the mail.

But, I get the impression that the people working there are being pushed to up-sell on everything. It's always a couple extra feet of rope, a fender the next largest size, the slightly more expensive boat soap...

I'm not endorsing west by any means, I just knew that would be my best shot of finding what I need around here, and sure enough they had a whole wall full of stuff. I don't remember seeing anything named watco, but then again, I wasn't looking for that either. So basically what I'm hearing is the guy may have just been trying to upsell me? All I walked out of there with this weekend was the cleaner, which I knew I needed, but I know I'll be back in later this week for the rest, I just want ya'lls advice on what that should be.

Here's another question, the MC link at the beginning of this thread appears to be broken, so its difficult for me to tell what process Tim is talking about. Let me see if I can figure it out
1. cleaning, some combination of pressure washing, scrubbing with a stiff brush and a cleaner
2. then the star brite or watco teak oil
3. let it dry (several days) then wetsand
4. let that dry and repeat (and repeat, and repeat) oiling and sanding, increasing the grit on the paper each time

that about right?
The two questions I have:
1. Tim mentioned working up to 1000 or 1200 grit, where should I start?
2. Is there a sealer of some kind at the end of the process or just the oil? somebody mentioned it, but I can't tell from the subsequent posts

Youve got it. Go very easy on the pressure washer. Brass brush and a good teak cleaner will be needed to get the black mold/mildew out of the grain. Rinse thoroughly after cleaning, and after every sanding (you want all dust and grime out of the wood prior to oiling). No sealer.

Start with whatever grit you need to make it smooth. Probably 320 or 400. If the platform is in really rough shape, you may need to go to 220 or 150... just be careful not to remove *too* much wood or the tips of the screws may start poking through.

After the process was done, the platform was not slick... though it looked like it would be!

You use the Teak oil for the "wet" on the wet sanding. This is a common practice for open grain woods that you finish with a oil type finish. The sanding dust from wet sanding will fill the grain and smooth it out some.