Teak Table

[PAC1]

This table is 20 years old. It lives April to November outside in Crete. It is 500m from the sea. The summer often hits 40C. It has just had its annual teak oil and clean. I think it is doing pretty good for 20 in those conditions.

 

[Cabinetman]

Yes it is, a lot better than in wet old England.

 

[AndyP]

And not a water ring in sight either. Impressive.

 

[Mike G]

Wonderful wood, teak. There's good reason yacht decks are made of it.

 

[Woodbloke]

I'd expect nothing less from teak; it's pretty indestructible. HMS Trincomalee was built in 1812 in India from Burma teak; she's still afloat and can be seen at Hartlepool - Rob

Edit - one of the reasons it's so durable is that it contains a lot of natural rubber! It's also the most expensive commercial hardwood.

 

[Raymedullary]

I served a very traditional yacht joinery apprenticeship back in the 70's down in Lymington, Hampshire. Teak was THE most common timber, solid and very high quality faced ply too. When we bought the stuff we ordered it as a tree (converted obviously!). It was wonderful, the stuff was everywhere and totally taken for granted.... strange but we all ended up with lots of teak objects at home!
Ah well those days are over now but I still miss the oily saw dust and that great odour!
I would leave that table bare and it will weather down to that nice silvery grey colour, it really needs no protection at all.

 

[Woodbloke]

I served a very traditional yacht joinery apprenticeship back in the 70's down in Lymington, Hampshire. Teak was THE most common timber...

When I was at Shoreditch College, nr Egham in the 70's, teak was also the favourite timber for us students to build stuff and the amount we went through was beyond belief. It was also the only timber that the machine shop refused to plane to size, so if you ordered it you had to carry away a pile of rough sawn timber and plane it all up by hand.
I didn't use it though...I preferred my log (eight 60mm thick boards) of prime English walnut - Rob

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Bl**dy awful when you got a splinter of it under the skin. The body's immune response against those silicaceous oils is extraordinary.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Not teak, but I have made a few pieces out of Iroko, "Teak substitute".

I made a fire surroud and mirror above out of it. Delivered to client at Easter. I got a splinter in the cushion of my thumb,, thought nothing of it. I pulled it out, the hole healed over but the irritation persisted, as did the swelling. My then-wife, a GP, took a look and said there was nothing there.

In September, we were on holiday and it was really bugging me, so eventually I took a penknife to it and stabbed myself. A whole lot of unpleasant gunge came out as well as a piece of wood half-an-inch long. It then healed up in a few days.

Those kind of woods are great for durability, but horrible to work with.
S

 

[Woodbloke]

As HoD in the 80's, I even used to order quite a bit of teak for the school workshop as 'back in the day' it wasn't too pricy. None though, was even used by 'les enfants' and by a remarkable and odd coincidence, quite a bit (all in fact) found it's way into my 'shop just outside the back door in the garden - Rob

Edit - Iroko is as durable as teak but it's the one timber that I seem to be allergic to, especially the dust which is like inhaling a pepper spray. Wenge is far worse than teak or iroko for splinters. Greenheart is nasty stuff as well for splinters!