The Companionway Doors

The original doors had seen better days and one of them was being held together with duct tape so I knew I would need to replace them. Luckily, there was a replacement door already in the boat cut from a piece of plywood. Not very pretty but it will keep the boat secure while I figured out how to remake the doors.

As grace would have it I was amazingly able to find a large piece of inch thick Burmese Teak on eBay that was just the right height for the doors and more then long enough. I then used the original doors as a template for the router to cut them out and shape the wings, the part that slides into the groove. This was when I realized my first error! I had miss remembered how the doors went into the boat and cut them backwards.

On the Tanzer the flat side of the door actually faces the inside and the curved cut out that makes the wings is on the outside. This is not that noticeable since the original doors were only 3/4 inch thick but on the inch thick doors this did not look good. Also because the doorway is not symmetrical and the cut was backwards, putting them in that way meant that the top could not slide into place. Putting them in the other way looked much better as the curve and the thickness matched the inside molding better but now the doors fit on one side but had a HUGE gap on the other. Putting the door in this way would also mean that the join between the doors would be backwards potentially letting rain water in. Ultimately, I chose to go for looks and if rain is a problem I will add a rubber gasket in between the doors.

To fix the gap at the top I still had a small strip of teak that was the same length as door which I joined to the top of the door with a tongue and grove joint using Gorilla glue.  Just for information purposes you wipe the joint with acetone to remove the surface oils then wipe it with water to help activate the glue and join it together.   This was when I made my second mistake. I forgot to take the tongue and grove overlap into account so now there was still a 1/4 inch gap. So I cut the top so that there would be a 1/4 inch gap along the entire top which I will fill in by putting foam rubber onto the sliding top that it mates with. I also curved the back side of the door top to help the foam to compress as it slides into place.

I then put a coat of Watco Teak Oil Wood Finish followed by Epifanes Clear Varnish as per the directions on the can 8 coats in all.

This just leaves the handle covers to refinish.