New (to us) Railsides!

As you may recall from some posts late last summer, most of the teak on our sailboat's deck was severly rotted. Perhaps the most rotted of all were the teak railslides for the sliding companionway hatch. I was fortuntate enough to come acrossed a fellow Helms 25 owner who happened to have a spare set of used railslides for that fit my boat perfectly (Thanks Wayne!). I continue to be amazed at the level of support and information provided by other sailors whom I've met online at places like Sailnet and the Yahoo Helms forums.

The railslides I received from Wayne were dirty and definately in need of some cosmetic work, but the teak wood was solid. I begin restoring the old railslides by sanding them. Next, I washed them in our shower much to the chagrin of my wife with a mixture of dish detergent, TSP and bleach. Then I carefully applied three coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane over the course of four days. I also used more epoxy to patch a couple of spots on the bottom of the railslides where the screws had damaged the wood.
I'm very pleased with how the railslides turned out. As you can see in the pictures below, they're quite an upgrade over my old rotted wood. The first picture shows (from top to bottom): 1) sanded railslide 2) railslide as received in the mail 3) my old rotted railslide.

The bottom picture shows the finished product!