refinish teak

Sorry what type of sand paper should i use 80 then 120 then 220 . Thanks for all the help you all have been great

Ski79, You don't need to or want to sand it too smooth. I sanded mine with 80 on a palm sander. then scrubbed the grain clean with a mixture of laundry detergent, TSP(trisodium phosphate) and water, to create a paste. scrubbed it in with a stiff brush.then let it dry and applied teak oil until it wouldn't take anymore. Mine came out a lot better than I expected.

the thing with sanding teak is when you sand it it tends to clog up the grain as it becomes pasty   if the grain is filled up with sanding dust the teak oil will not penetrate properly.

there is no need to use finer grits of sandpaper

a lot of info can be found on this site about this subject, that's where I learned

79PA, The key to a good teak refinish is getting it clean and then using a non organic teak oil. If you can remove the teak platform from the boat it is easier to clean and oil . The black / gray is mold and mildew growing on the wood that must be removed otherwise it will come right back. This mold and mildew feeds on traditional organic tung oils that are sold as teak oil. I've seen "quick" teak jobs turn gray-black in less than 2 weeks because it wasn't compleatly cleaned and the mold was simply fed with the tung oil!

Do not use any polurethanes or varnishes for finishing because teak is a oily wood that the hard finishes will not stick to. It may look great to start but will start peelig off in no time.

David, Amazon Gold is one of the organic tung oils. I was just wondering how long it lasted. Pete

Guys, I've used three or four different oils over the years. Amazon Golden Teak Oil, Starbrite, etc. They all worked about the same. They look good for a short period of time and then start to look like crap again. They are also very slippery the first couple of times they get wet. I finally found some stuff on line at www.marinestore.com that is called TeakGard. The stuff is awesome. I did the initial application about six or seven years ago and it still looks incredible. To keep it up, all you have to do is wash the platform with regular car or boat wash soap, let it dry and rough it up a bit with bronze wool once or twice a season and then apply a couple more coats of the stuff. It takes about an hour total per year to keep it looking great. It's never slippery and since the initial application, I just used up the last of the original bottle. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

I reapply Amazon before each new season. The color and new comes right back. Of course the platform gets a good cleaning with warm soapy water and stiff brush beforehand and I let it dry thouroughly.

I moor my boat for 2 months. No matter how good my prep is, or how good the teak looks after it's oiled, it only stays that way for 1 month at most. I use Amazon, also.
I'll have to try unorganic oil.

I have a 1/2 gal. of Teak Guard. It is more of a water based urathane and not an oil. It does a good job on old, tired platforms, but does not look the same as oiled teak. It also tends to peel on newer platforms because they aren't dryed out enough.