New Cabin Sole for the Swede

[Noah]

My current teak ply sole is delaminating in places and is in pretty rough shape. I would also like to lighten up the interior and I think a brighter cabin sole would help.

What do you folks think I should use? Keep in mind it's a pretty large area I need to cover (figure 3 sheets of 4X8 ply) so laminating something up is going to be tedious.

And a pic:


Thanks,

Noah

[Jason K]

What about teak and holly veneer ply?

Some of the newer production boats are now using a synthetic product in lieu of real teak and holly or teak and holly veneer - I can't remember the name off the top of my head.

Another option would be to do the teak strips like Tim did with Kaholee, though that would be a fair amount of work over the expanse of your boat.

[Noah]

The teak ply is the only sole, so I couldn't do Tim's teak strip thing without first cutting and putting down ply, so I would probably just go the teak ply route - which is my first choice. I just thought I would ask others what they thought and look for some nice alternatives.

[Tim]

Are you anticipating installing a new sole over the existing, or removing the old sole entirely to begin anew?

Do you like any light-colored woods? Light-colored hardwood with dark "caulk" lines between the planks could be an alternative if you're into the look of light woods. Cherry also makes a fine, rich-looking sole, and cherry tends to complement teak and mahogany nicely too.

Wider strips seem like they could work in your boat too, which might reduce the tedium of installing a million 2" strips.

Of course, any strip sole is going to be more work than simply using a sheet good. The prefab teak/"holly" (the light wood isn't holly, it's something else now, but it'll probably forever be called teak and holly) sole plywood veneer sole material may be the quickest way for you to get something new and attractive, but it might be worth it to spend a bit more time and build something truly interesting and unique that suits you more specifically.

Plus, that teak and holly plywood is horrifically expensive and looks, well, a bit prefab. It's still nice, but I'd be inclined to have some fun if I were you and come up with something a bit more interesting.

If you built a basic plywood substrate, cut to fit the boat, and then did your layout and strip installation out of the boat before installing, the work would be much easier and less time-consuming, I think.

Lots of grist for the mill and there's no right answer, of course.

[Noah]

I was planning on taking out the old sole (it's 3/4 ply) completely and installing the new sole on the old supports which are glass.

I really like the idea of cherry - I don't like the idea of the teak and holly ply because of cost - and it's a bit cheesy.

Ply would be the easiest by a long run because some of these pieces are pretty wide. It's also probably the best for wood movement purposes. A laminated board 36" wide is pretty likely to swell and cup a fair amount. It would also mean I could remove the old pieces, trace them and cut a replacement pretty easily.

What do you folks think about getting sheets of something like Cherry ply and routing in a lighter colored strip at some nice width. That way it breaks up the "sheet good" aspect of the ply some.

I suppose I could also go with a 1/2 ply and glue on solid wood over the top. It would take a bunch of wood to do the whole sole though.

[Tim]

I don't like how sheet goods look as a sole: the wide expanse of veneered grain is just unnatural-looking. It looks like plywood no matter what you do. Floors (soles) are supposed to be strips or planks, not sheets.

So if you want to use a sheet good like cherry plywood, I'd definitely say you should rout grooves in it for contrasting wood at regular intervals to simulate a planked appearance. I don't know how this would look, but it'd have to be better than just a flat boring sheet.

This would be a lot of work too, so if it were me I'd probably build a substrate from 1/2" marine plywood and glue hardwood strips (1/4" thick or so by whatever width you like) to the top, with space for contrasting strips or caulk lines or butted together or whatever you like. Then install the pre-fabbed sole in the boat in several large sections.

This is what I was referring to in my earlier response. To me, this is the best of both worlds: stability and ease of construction from the plywood, and the appearance of real wood strips on top, with enough thickness to sand and refinish several times. And since the hardwood is relatively thin, you don't need a huge amount of it (though your sole is large, so it'll require a bit regardless). It does take a bit of milling work to resaw all your thin strips, but it's not hard.

One of the many beauties of cherry is how affordable it is compared to other woods.

[Noah]

I just got off the phone with my dad and we have a fair bit of 8" X 3/4 cherry sitting in the barn. Figure 2 1/2" strips and I could get 3 strips before re-sawing and 6 after re-sawing - that's 15" wide per board. Figure most of the sole is only 30" wide or so and the cherry will go pretty far. I'm thinking maple for the contrasting strips cause it's easy to get and local. I suppose I could try to find holly, but I don't know if it's necessary.

Now, the next thing is will the cherry really go with all the brown teak in the interior?

What should I do to all that brown to make it pop and look nice? - it's oiled teak ply right now.

[Rachel]

I'm not going to say that you shouldn't do something with all the existing wood, and I'm not sure how it would go with cherry (I tend to not like a bunch of mixed woods, but that's just me. I like white + accent wood).

However, that disclaimer out of the way, I think that just getting rid of that sole will make a huge improvement. Maybe enough? It's just an all-life-in-the-vicinity-sucking dead, dark brown. Geez, what an improvement to get that out!

[Tim]

Get some cherry, finish it up the way you anticipate, and bring it into your interior to make sure you like how it goes the existing wood. It's too important a choice to jump into purely on faith. Regardless of the ultimate sole material, maple could be a fine choice for a contrasting lighter-colored wood, among others. Use what's available, and use what you like.

A new cherry sole is likely to make the existing areas seem more drab, so, there may be a call to refinish the adjacent surfaces. Satin varnish would bring out the best in your teak, I think. Or tung oil, perhaps, if you want to use a wipe-on type finish (but you'll need a lot more coats to get any depth). Thoroughly cleaning and lightly sanding your old teak first, and in any event, would probably work wonders in terms of brightening it up. Oiled teak surfaces tend to get darker and darker with age, and it's amazing how much dirt and grime gets picked up on surfaces over the years. It always looks fine till you start to clean, and then you wonder how you could stand it before.

I find cherry, mahogany, and teak to be three very complementary woods with similar richness and tonality, though each with their own specific appearance qualities, so they mix and match well as long as each is used for a specific purpose (i.e they aren't substitutes for each other, but work well when used together in a single space). I like teak the least of the three, frankly, but am a big fan of cherry and mahogany.

There's a chance that with all the dark teak above, the lighter tones of a cherry sole might work less well than if, say, the roles were reversed. But there's enough sole to be seen there that it deserves a nice material, and serves an important overall function in the ambiance of the interior as a whole. Make one thing what you want it to be, and the rest will fall into place.

Unfortunately, one thing is likely to lead to another here.

Damn that it's all connected!

[Tim]

It's just an all-life-in-the-vicinity-sucking dead, dark brown. Geez, what an improvement to get that out!

Rachel, I was wondering what you really thought of that sole. Don't hold back, now. ;<)

The dementors' sole, perhaps?

[Rachel]

Maybe one too many hyphenated hideousities? <grin> I swear, that just typed itself right into the keyboard after I looked at the photos of that soulless sole.

The Swede is just too pretty for that.

R.