Removing exterior teak - suggestions please...

[Don from Mystic]

I have decided to remove the teak grab rails etc from my 27A so that I may sand and refinish them properly (sikkins, great stuff). I presume the fasteners are hidden by the teak dowels. Any coveted tricks in removing the dowels would be appreciated. ALso any suggestions of what brand of filler to use in the deeper cracks would be much appreciated..Many THanks!

[Don from Mystic]

I had no responses to my post but did remove the grabrails on the wheelhouse immediately discovering SS machine screws/nuts holding them (nuts are on the teak side).Two screws on the side grab rails are inaccessable so I took a long (so it flexed)metal cutting blade in my Sawsall ,ground the sides carefully to "blind" it and rested it against sheetmetal placed over the glass. I lost about 1/64" of grab rail height to cut them off and have them inside my nice warm shop to work on. The headliner prevents access inside the cabin so these will be refinished in place when spring finally arrives. Oh yea, removing the dowel plugs is fairly easy.remove the head from a long fine thread sheetrock screw, drill a pilot hole in the dowel followed by the chucked screw in a battery drill - the plug will be jacked out easily-

[tranmkp]

Dan,

I am in the process of stripping off all the teak on my 27 - A lot more than meets the eye - the grab rails - I have a lot of them - the ones on the cabin top are screwed in from below - other ones have a bung that has to be removed to access the screw head. Al pretty straight forward...

Mike

86 27ac

[RicM]

I foolishly agreed to help a friend with a wooden boat refasten his hull several years ago. He had a tool he called a "bung puller" that looked looked a lot like a short knitting needle attached to a handle.