"Tom Dacon" wrote in message
...
You know, you might want to re-think your choice of materials here.
cedar's pretty soft, and wouldn't look very good very long if left natural
and unfinished, both from the weathering and from the damage to the wood
that occurs in everyday use - from walking on it, to dropping winch
handles on it, to scrubbing away at the mildew to get it looking bright
again. Even vertical-grain teak, as tough and oily as it is, weathers and
wears and erodes away over time. I've got a teak deck that was over an
inch thick when it was built, and there are spots on it that are no more
than 5/8" thick now. Scrubbing the deck to brighten it up erodes the soft
grain, and then you're tempted to sand it to recover the smooth surface,
and before long your three-eights of an inch is gone.

You're not likely to find a finish that you can apply to it that will
protect it the way you want, without losing the (slight) non-skid
properties of an unfinished deck. Varnish it, and it'll be slippery as
hell (although you might find a non-skid additive that would remain
reasonably clear - some people have successfully used tiny glass beads,
which leaves a sort of milky translucence). What did I do with mine?
Eventually I gave up and painted it.

A number of years ago a renowned boat builder, Renaissance Yachts,
launched a Herreshoff Bounty replica, 57', exquisitely built, with cedar
decks like you're describing, and I saw it up here in Port Townsend, WA,
about a year after it was built. Even after that short time - a year! -
the caulk had begun to separate from the sides of the seams. We just shook
our heads. I've caulked the teak decks on my 41' sloop several times in
the years I've owned it, and generally I could get the caulk to adhere to
the sides of the seams for around five years before I started having
trouble.

However, all that aside, if you can't be dissuaded from using cedar, I'd
suggest Alaskan yellow cedar instead of Port Orford, which is getting
scarcer and scarcer by the year.

My advice? Put another layer of plywood on the subdeck, glass it, and
paint it.

Tom Dacon


For a "wood look," people are reporting good success with laminating
PlasTeak or other "plastic wood" rather than teak. Over time it weathers to
a salt-washed teak look, and has reasonable non-skid properties that last
and last.