Deck 2

OK, now that all of the wood repairs on the deck are done it’s time to replace all of the rubber between the deck boards. This job was last done about 10 years ago at my house when I did the rebuild on the goose. Now, I’m having the rubber seams are starting to pull away from the teak boards and letting in little leaks here and there. The only real fix is to replace all of the seams with new rubber.  It’s a long and involved process that starts with defining the area and cutting out the old rubber.

Then it’s time to clean up the seams with a home made “hook” knife made from an old file. This is a tedious and demanding job that has to get all of the old rubber out but not the wood that it is stuck to.

 

Cutting out the majority or the rubber

 

now, take your home make hook knife and clean up the edges of the boards

 

Then you go back and pound in all of the cotton (that is at the bottom of the gap between each board).

final product, ready to tape

Finally, you take a roll of blue tape and tape off each seam side in preparation for putting in the new rubber.

Now, you can get out your tubes of rubber calk and calk away! After a few seams are full you have to go back and “squish” the rubber down into the seam and smooth it off.

 

 
When your done, you have about 5 minutes to peal up all of the blue tape (before the rubber sets) and then clean up. After 4 hours of hard work, you have another 2 x 2 foot area
done.... and it looks just like it did before you started. Only 14 more times to go and it's done!