Beautiful Marine Floors was established 3 years ago to supply marine fitters with high quality boat decking and flooring products to help them service their boat-owning customers. We are looking for more boatbuilders and fitters to install our products.
We understand that there is only a finite amount of working time available in the week for fitters to earn money, which is why our aim is to keep as much of their time focused on productive work as possible. At Beautiful Marine Floors, we work with fitters in two important ways: firstly, we drive new business to local fitters through active marketing campaigns and secondly, we advise customers on the latest marine decking and flooring products and provide guidance to help them decide which product would best fit their needs.
Retail customers regularly contact Beautiful Marine Floors via our helpful website for samples and advice on a wide range of flooring and decking products (both internal and external). There are 3 types of exterior decking that we advise on namely, PVC synthetic teak panels, EVA foam and Composite Cork as well as interior products.
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Beautiful Marine Floors has an extensive database of different boats in order to estimate the cost of supplying panels relating to both powerboat and sailboat cockpit seat, floors, side decks, and bathing platforms. We supply both trade and retail prices for panels relating to most boat types. Retail customers either seek a local fitter (usually from our database of certified fitters) or fit the panels themselves after making a custom template for their boat. Templates are usually supplied to Beautiful Marine Floors on a mylar film which can be supplied by Beautiful Marine Floors if necessary. PVC Synthetic Teak Strips are made into panels in the same way as a typical teak deck
Panel Example - before being rolled up and wrapped for despatch
Final Product - Aesthetically pleasing, durable, little to no maintenance
This is the latest and most ECO product that Beautiful Marine Floors has been involved with. In many ways it is the most interesting product for local fitters or DIY enthusiasts as it requires all the necessary labour on site rather than being pre-fabricated elsewhere. In its development we found it is less than ideal as a panel product because more delicate parts of the panel are susceptible to damage during transport. However, it works well on larger boats by fabricating whole decks on site. The product comes in 13m x 1m rolls that can be easily teak oiled, cut to shape and bonded with an ms polymer to the deck surface. Once the product has been laid the pattern can be drawn on the deck and a 3mm deep caulking channel routered. This channel should be regarded as the baseline and using the channel in conjunction with an inexpensive jig the router can be used to produce identical channels a fixed distance apart (usually 50mm in line with standard teak decks).
Once the deck pattern is routered with the channels to the desired deck design then they can be masked and filled with an appropriate ms polymer caulking/adhesive
Smaller panels can still be made off site and even margins bonded to panel edges and filled. Large boats can have ECO decks made quickly at very reasonable costs. The benefits of cork rubber composite is that it is soft underfoot, low maintenance (teak oil), durable and cool underfoot. Cork is an amazing insulator so it should be of particular interest to large steel and wooden boats.
Here is a large wooden boat that has had the caulking channels routered and is ready for masking up and caulking.
Beautiful Marine Floors have been developing a range of teak carpets to their own designs. Composite teak carpet is a unique blend of carpet and vinyl that is becoming increasingly popular due to its practicality, durability and good looks. It can be cut to shape off a 2m wide roll easily and does not fray. Colours include traditional, weathered and aged with the traditional having a choice of black or white caulking.
The same designs are also available to those preferring a more typical pile carpet but these will fray unless bound and come on a 1.8m wide roll.
Beautiful Marine Floors also supply vinyl flooring that is often used to refurbish existing interior soleboards off the roll. Woven vinyls are also available off the roll which represent more practical alternatives to the more traditional pile carpet.
In an attempt to give customers a greater degree of confidence we have been listing fitters whom we have verified as competent. Whilst we cannot guarantee the work of a Beautiful Marine Floors Certified Fitter, the trademark the fitter carries tells you that Beautiful Marine Floors have undertaken a range of checks and are satisfied that these Certified Fitters have the necessary experience and knowledge to fit our decks and panels to the standards we expect.
Composite Cork is a natural mixture of cork and rubber which can be used for decking on boats. It has a number of benefits, one of which is that it has excellent eco-credentials when compared to less sustainable plastics and teak hardwoods. Combining the cork and rubber into a single decking solution gives it unique properties which have a number of benefits over other materials and makes it an increasingly interesting material for boat owners to consider when thinking about their boat decks.
I remember at school experimenting with different materials and seeing for myself how cork remained cool when exposed to heat when compared to a wide range of other materials. It is an amazing insulator. This ability to insulate is significant when considering cork for decking as it will allow you to walk barefoot on the deck in hot weather and will keep the temperature cooler below decks. As an insulator it also reduces damaging condensation below decks and also the noise travelling through the boat. These are properties that will benefit all boat owners but will be particularly attractive to owners of large steel motor boats. Boat owners with cork decks have also noted significant reductions in their heating use in the winter periods. Combined with the excellent durability that cork decks provide, there are significant benefits to using cork as a decking materials.
Of course, there are some challenges when using cork for decking. One of these is that cork usually comes in sheet form and is brittle and inflexible. As a natural product it will also weather quickly and turn a grey colour that is less emotionally appealing to boatowners. So how do we mitigate these problems and produce a cork decking product which can overcome these issues?
Firstly, to overcome the brittleness and inflexibility we mix cork granules with rubber and use a binding agent. This changes the cork from a typical 6ft x 4ft sheet to a roll product 13m x 1 metre long and 5mm thick. This is perfect for a large wooden or steel leisure boat to cut to shape and bond to the deck substrate, typically using an ms polymer glue widely used in marine applications. The rubber within this composite material does give off a certain smell that takes time to wear off. This is not an issue for external decks but using it below decks without much ventilation may cause people to have second thoughts. To mitigate this, the product has been continually developed to increase the cork content as far as possible, with the use of binding agents within the composite allowing the product to remain as flexible as possible.
Secondly, to overcome the changes in colour which can be experienced with cork decks, we oil the deck prior to fixing onto the boat and owners continue to do so as part of their regular beginning and end of season routine. Although cork composite requires more maintenance than a PVC deck, it is easier than maintaining a teak deck and has a higher proportion of natural ingredients than PVC decks.
The cork rolls can be grooved normally either using a CNC machine or a hand router. Once grooved they are filled by masking up either side of the groove by spreading an ms polymer sealant/adhesive into the channels. This gives a traditional marine deck look, with the regular oiling of the deck in a teak stain leading to a good teak deck effect.
Traditionally, large production deck builders lay huge teak deck panels onto GRP cloth ready to fit onto large production boats. The solid teak deck panels may be cumbersome to transport but they are broken down into manageable parts for reassembly onboard the boat. This is more difficult with cork composite decks with transport more likely to cause damage. For this reason, composite cork lends itself more to DIY/retrofit applications by local fitters on larger boats. A skilled fitter or DIY tradesman will easily cut the cork to shape straight off the roll with a stanley knife, joining the composite cork at the edge with a bead of adhesive and hiding the join under the deck caulk. 2mm grooves can be cut to the deck pattern, with masking and filling using the sealant/adhesive achieving the desired traditional deck look.
Small panels can be easily cut on a CNC machine and panels sitting on a 2m x 1m CNC machine are reasonably transportable. Larger panels can be problematic. Cockpit seats on sailboats are consequently targeted as good potential applications for composite cork. Beautiful Marine Floors will supply “50mm ready grooved and oiled” composite cork material off the roll which can be turned into unmargined deck panels by caulking the grooves as explained above.
Comparing costs is not totally straightforward, for the reasons outlined below.
Natural teak decks will be the most expensive to use, with the price dependent on the thickness and quality of the teak. PVC synthetic teak panels are usually around £300 per sq metre and can be fabricated into large deck panels. Using cork composite for larger boats costs around £50 per sq metre, but it should be remembered that these relatively low costs will be augmented by the fact that considerably more fitting work is required ‘on-site’ compared to that required for fitting ready-made PVC synthetic teak panels.
Laying the plain cork composite is a similar amount of work to a PVC synthetic deck but it does not end there. The fitter will need to router the grooves, mask and fill the channels which is labour intensive work. However, it does mean that a competent DIY tradesman can make considerable savings should he choose to fit a composite cork deck himself.
Smaller and more intricate composite cork deck panels from templates often end up costing similar sums to PVC synthetic teak deck panels. The templates need to be converted into CAD drawings and then CNC machined so the processes are more involved before filling with deck caulking. However, a good DIY person could simply buy “ready grooved” material, cut to shape and fill making significant cost savings.
Composite cork is a durable, non-slip deck covering with excellent eco-credentials that only requires a little annual maintenance to ensure it keeps its teak effect appearance. Its unique properties should appeal to many. For larger decks professional fitters should be able to fabricate the decks themselves on behalf of their customers with simple tooling. For DIY it has the attraction of major cost savings compared to other decking materials that require panel fabrication. The material has some limitations for use in larger panel fabrication in particular transportation without damage.
]]>Synthetic teak decking is a comparatively new marine product to the market and the appearance has improved over the years. There are a number of quality brands on the market to choose from and we have seen a number of comparative tests of material brands. The material strips are welded into a panel shape before being adhered onto a typically fibreglass deck. However, do these material tests actually amount to much?
1) Texture and Grip. Why compare the materials texture and grip when it can be altered in a jiffy simply by sanding the surface? It is the sanding that gives the PVC material its texture and grip and the customer may choose the texture during fabrication.
2) Temperatures. Comparisons show that the materials surface temperature is principally governed by the colour so cooler colours have the most dramatic effect on keeping the deck cool. The arguement as to which synthetic teak is the coolest amounts to which material cools the quickest after the sun recedes This can bring in many factors. Is it worth all the arguing?
3) Weight. Many boats are designed or have an option of having a teak deck which is much heavier than synthetic teak decking. So a typical 28ft sportsboat cockpit is around 5 sq m and has a difference of 6kg in the synthetic teak decking brands. This compared to the typical weight of such a boat being 2500 kg. Is the typical extra weight really considered a significant factor of choice compared to other factors of choice?
Here are some other suggested comparisons that might be more useful
1) Durability. Decking Panels could be stress tested at the welds to see which are the strongest panels. Each brand tends to have different methods of construction. Welding from the back is generally considered stronger than welding from the top and it is often the welds that will wear first,
2) Staining. Some Synthetic Teak Decking is more prone to staining than others. Brands with additives in the PVC compound will stain differently to those without additives. Comparative tests on staining dont seem to go into much detail or cover the subject thoroughly but experience and customer feedback suggests significant differences.
3) Adhesion. Which Panels adhere the best with the recommended adhesives?. The underside of each of the Synthetic Teak brands tend to vary. Ridges give more surface area to bond compared to smooth and dovetails are supposed to give some extra mechanical bond.
]]>Synthetic teak is a relatively new product to the market and the appearance has improved over the years. We have all seen some plastic horrors and decks falling apart. Things have thankfully improved over the years. There are now a number of material brands on the market to choose from. The most expensive component of synthetic teak decking is PVC and the decks containing 100% Virgin PVC will be the most expensive to produce. Recycled content will tend to dull and change colour so ask if the material is 100% Virgin content without recycled content. If the material contains additives rather than recycled content then there are different considerations. Additives in sufficient quantity can reduce the weight of the product which may be important for boats like catamarans. However, they also effect the durability of the deck and the life of the deck, particularly at the welds. Some additives cause the deck to mark more easily so it is worth doing a few red wine tests, imperative importance in a boat cockpit. So in short, additives may enhance the appearance but unfortunately at the expense of the durabilty.
In addition, the deck panel strength is also governed by the type of extrusions themselves. In short, how is the deck welded together? Heat welding is a professional method to join the material together and provides a far, far stronger deck compared to bonding the strips together with solvent adhesive. Bonding together using solvents is considered to be more a DIY method. Some deck systems may even combine both solvent welding and heat welding at the deck margins for added strength.
Having the perfect material is wasted if the welder is inexperienced or poorly trained. This is a skilled job both in interpreting templates to get the desired panel pattern and knowing how to weld properly in synthetic teak material. Both the heat of the welder and the speed of welding play an important part. Fitters are non too happy if the deck panel disintegrates into its component parts or the pattern does not conform to the boat type. Some welders sometimes get carried away and over embellish the pattern so it becomes more a work of art ready for an art gallery rather than a boat floor. Try and find out who is welding your deck and his level of experience. The more experienced ones put together amazing decks at amazing speeds.
Having the perfect material and the perfect panel can all turn sour if the fitter covers the deck with polymer adhesive and his caulking lines resemble the path of a drunken man walking a pavement. The ideal fitter is a careful methodical person who takes his time and pays attention to detail. He is the exact opposite personality of an experienced welder fabricator - he actually gets slower with more experience. He is usually the person who takes the template so without those perfection qualities the whole project can turn into a nightmare. Taking extra time pays dividends.
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