When I purchased "Early Light" the teak eyebrows were in rough shape. Twenty years of sanding and refinishing had taken it's toll and they were extremely thin. In fact it was tough to even get a teak plug to hold over the top of the attachment screws. I put up with this for 2 seasons as I had higher priority upgrades to take care of first. The time has come to address the problem of this trim.

I first emailed Glen at Sabre and asked for a quote for new trim. The qoute I received was $200 plus motor freight shipping of approx $100 since they are almost 16 feet long. Glen recommended I try to find a local shop to mill them for me. I contacted Bill West at Exotic Lumber in Annapolis and he quoted me $82 for both of them and they would be ready for pickup in 2 to 3 days. I jumped on this quote and drove my Toyota to Annapolis to pick them up. I was able to strap them to the side of the car by tying them to the passenger side mirror as well as the door pillar, a support behind the grill and a location within the trunk. They were about 2 feet longer than the car so I left about 1 foot sticking past the bumpers at either end.

Once I had them home, I gave them a final sanding and then 6 coats of Cetol. Next I removed the old trim from the boat. This took approximately 2 hours to pop the plugs that weren't already falling out and removing the 54 screws. The trim was actually fractured in several places at the screw locations.

One of several places where the eyebrow trim had been fractured

Once I had the teak off the coachroof sides, I was faced with a 20 year accumulation of dirt and grunge that was behind them.

What you see is NOT the teak trim, but the grunge that was behind it

Another hour was spent cleaning the grunge off.

With the trim removed, I was able to put several coats of wax on using my buffer before continuing. Once the trim is on, it has to be waxed by hand.

I strapped the new eyebrow trim to the side of my car with lots of rags to protect the teak and headed for the marina.

I don't think teak eyebrows do much for a Toyota
(or is the real problem the white rags?)

Click HERE for page 2 of Replacing the teak eyebrows

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