removing deck seam caulk

[Matt Smith]

I need to romove the caulking on the deck seams. It is from around 1975 and is all crackly. I was told to heat it and it would come out but I am nervous about the Varnish. Is there a clean and safe way to do it? Thanks Matt

[Matt Smith]

WOW. No answers. Do you hear crickets. I do? I now know why there have been no answers. Ya just gotta strip her down. Thats it. No one had the courage to tell me the truth I suppose. Well I did it, stripped her down and even redid some planking. That is the tough truth but is the answer know from experience.

[DeanS29]

I hope that is not the only way. I have the same old "crackley" caulk. I don't know how old it is but it sticking up and cracked. I was hoping to be able to remove it and then get by with a few coats of varnish so I can get a few seasons out of the existing finish before doing a complete restoration. I have tried a curved dental tool with little success. I was wondering if a dremel tool or lamanite cutter would work. I am sure there is thousands of hours of caulk removal expertise on this forum...even if like Matt said the truth hurts. Thanks Dean

[Matt Smith]

I have heard that a heat gun can soften the stuff. Then clean it out. It still will effect the varnish though. Take a sanding disk piece of sand paper and fold it in half. Slide it in the groove and have at it. But in the end. We all know the answer...

[Chris Hall]

Boater's World has a cool tool for removing the caulk, kind of a V-shaped point with a handle on it. I used a Hardibacker scoring knife (available at Home Depot in the tile section) and ground down the sharp point on the carbide tip with my bench grinder.

[WoodenBoatDIY]

So now how are you going to go back with new caulking?

What kind. How do you keep it white. After or prior to varnish?

Sammy

[Tom Riggle]

Expanding on Chris Hall's suggestion, I went to Home Depot this morning, to the tile section as he suggested. I picked up a $10 device called a Grout Saw. There were two styles. The one I bought has a soft rubber handle and comes with two, slightly different, blades. The blades were fastened together in the working position as if that is how they should be used. That's about right for the real seams but a little wide for the false seams. The wider of the two blades, when used alone, is near perfect. I've been struggling with this job on a 22 Sedan but, using this tool works great and is almost fun! It's fast too. I can do the whole job while listening to one Rush Limbaugh show.

[Pieter Janssen]

Hi All,
i have a language question and one on the deck seams.
1. what does caulking mean? (sorry, i am from holland;-). Is it like kitting
2. What caulk should i get for the white deck seam, is it rubber?
tnx
Pieter

[Matt Smith]

Sorry Pieter for leaving you hanging there. I did not know how to give you the correct answer so I left this post alone. But since no one has answered I will give you my best answer. Caulking is the stuff you put in little cracks and seams. It comes in many forms. Some adhesive some dries as tight as wood, metal or plastic. Regarding wood boats there are many different types out there. As to deck seams. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. What I finally did was use Sickaflex. Now I did a trick to make things look sharper. I used mahogany colored Sikaflex Caulk, let it dry and then painted white satin paint over it. The wood color blends with the wood and the taped lines give it a crisp sharp look. And protect the caulk. There are many tricks to this regarding striping your deck, and there are a ton of posts on that on the Buzz. Hope this helps.

[MikeM]

I may be jumping the gun here and don't consider this to be a tool review, but I'm picking up a "teak blade" for my Fein Multi tool. I will be removing the deck seams on a cruiser this week. I'll let you guys know how this works. If it doesn't work as advertised I'll go back to the old router method.

[BOSSMOSS]

I have recently acquired the Driftwood - a 1956 38' Constellation and need to do a lot of finishing ........ 1st the decks which have 3 types of finish. I am wondering which of the three is appropriate ....... aft deck has a light colored caulk (that looks like teak & holly decking), the decking to port & starboard of the cabin looks to have been stained red (decking & caulking - see photo), and the foredeck has black caulking.

what is/are the correct caulking? What product (s) are recommended?

... thinking of using dremmel toll & straight edge to grind out the old ...... all decking needs to be revarnished ... (or oiled?)

[snewk41]

My wife & I have removed caulk from our Chris & there is no clean way to do it. We finally each used screwdrivers that fit the width of the seam, & that worked as well as anything. I will be curious to see how the tool mentioned earlier works. This is one of the nasty slow jobs with no easy way to complete.

[MikeM]

I have finally finished removing the seam compound from an Owens cruiser with the Fein teak blade mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, it wasn't the magical tool I was hoping for. It works OK but I had two blades break after only a couple hours of use and if you're familiar with Fein, you know those accessories aren't cheap. I finished the job with the broken cutter. It started out as a "J" (hook) and broke into an "l".

The broken tool separated the compound from the wood and I needed to do it in two passes. In short, the previous post says it all. This is a slow and painful job and I don't know that there's a magic bullet out there for it. I thought about switching to the router, but found that some of the compound was very hard, some sorta hard and some of it soft. I figured the soft compound would bugger up the bit and decided to continue on with the Fein tool and broken cutter.

I'm glad to report that the new compound is in and I'll be varnishing Friday.

[steve bunda]

After wasting many hours removing deck seam caulk by hand and picking, and by extensive router set up, I thought there must be a better way. After my experience working in the engraving field (mold making) and being a tinker, I looked fondly at my trusty Dewalt cordless 5 1/4 circle saw.Then I eye balled the first seam ,free hand ran the saw down it and removed the dried out caulk ,perfect except the blade had a little wobble. No Problem, took saw apart, made some shims out of silcon bronze washers and reassembled. Now I can cut the middle of the seam with a small kerf blade and the rest of the caulk will bust out away from the wood.I recommend a steady hand and good eye for this proccess.Have done it many times.steve

[moseslaf]

hello folks; just a coment, I spent more than a few unsettling hours trying to figure out the 'caulk' problem. tryed the machine, Bosch not to good a results. Different file handles bent at 90% with same outcome. Then I took a screwdriver bent at 90% ground to the width of the deck grove and had at it with the best results, not perfact but did the job in a timeley fashion.
Oh yea, the screwdriver should be case harden, or as hard as you can find one.Makes for a square grove, and will go deep enough to completely clean the grove.