Help getting consistent teak oil finish! A tale of two doors!


Phoinikos

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Any help getting this finish to look at all uniform would be greatly appreciated!!

I am completely new to woodworking and finishes.  We moved into a barge in London with a great wooden pilothouse, but whose varnish was so old that it had completely worn through in several areas, leaving bare rotted/graying/pitted wood.  Trying to be useful, I thought I'd remove the old varnish then refinish with teak oil.

What I did:

On the LEFT door, I sanded only.  The right-hand vertical piece of this door is the look I'd hoped to get.  I sanded it down using only 120 grit paper on a 1/3 sheet sheet sander.  It took near 2 hours for just that one piece!

Hoping to speed things up (I know, always the culprit), I switched to 60 grit paper, followed by 120 for the rest of the left door.  It was...ok, but it seemed that I got a much grainer(?) appearance with more blotching, particularly on the left-hand vertical piece.

So, on the RIGHT door, I used a varnish stripper.  Worked it in for a few minutes, let it sit for 20-30 minutes and then scraped and used a wire scourer to get the gunk off.  THEN I sanded, starting at 60 grit, then 120, then 240.  

 

Now what???  I don't know what wood I'm working with, but I'm starting to think I need a pre-conditioner or shellac washcoat to prevent the blotching.  While I think that could help the blotchiness, I'm not confident at all that it would address the issue causing the two doors to look so different!  Do I just need to sand a lot more after using the varnish stripper? Or should I just ditch it entirely and just resign myself to spending the next month sanding the pilothouse?!?

 

Any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated!

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FYI, the wood is teak.  I don't necessarily think teak oil is the greatest finish to use in this application, even though you are finishing teak and the finish is called "teak oil."  (Marketing BS...teak oil has nothing to do with teak.)  It's an oil/varnish mix with very little varnish.  I'd use a high quality spar varnish like Epifanes or I'd use a straight oil like boiled linseed or tung oil.  Forget anything in between...either go for the natural look with an easy-to-refresh finish like oil (which you'll have to reapply several times a year), or go for total protection with varnish.

Whatever you use, you need to put on the brakes and go back to the beginning.  The reason the doors don't look the same is because you didn't follow the same procedure with both doors.  Sorry to say, you need to start over.  Sand the finish back with 80 grit until you're into raw wood again (or close to it - oil soaks in deep), then progress through the grits - 120, 180 - 220 is optional - then finish.

The other thing to consider is that it's possible, despite following identical procedures with both doors, that you could end up still having a slight color disparity.  Wood has natural variation in color and just because both doors are built with the same species of wood - even from the same tree - even from the same board - doesn't necessarily mean consistency of color.

And further - looking at the construction of the doors, it appears that the inside stile of the left door is slightly skinnier than the inside stile of the right door, which may indicate that one of the doors was replaced at some point.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  But that could certainly be a cause for color mismatch.

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Hi Eric, thank you so much for the reply!

I sort of expected I'd need to sand everything down again.  No worries there.  I would, though, like to make sure my next attempt won't also have to be erased!

Could you explain the differences in effect of the spar varnish vs linseed/tung oil?  The wife and I are leaning towards an oil finish (we only used the teak oil because we had it on hand).  I think we like the idea of a natural look and the easy-to-reapply maintenance.  With teak, though, will linseed/tung oil be enough UV protection to prevent graying?  We're in London, so not a huge amount of sun, but still...

Also, we have found linseed oil much cheaper than tung oil in bulk.  From a quick search on the interwebs, it appears that tung oil is more protective but potentially requires more skill to apply.  Particularly for the exterior of a boat, I worry that boiled linseed oil may not offer enough protection.

Finally -- is there a more effective way of removing this varnish?  Sanding seems to give the cleaner result but takes time and removes a good bit of wood.

Thanks again!

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Agreed with what Eric said, most of your problems are due to insufficient surface prep and sanding.  

Wood is a natural material so no matter what you will get some color variation and blotching, but consistent sanding will help.  A cheap random orbit sander will speed things up quite a bit.  In the US you can get a decent ROS for $50 or so.  

I absolutely would not use a prestain conditioner on an outdoor project.  Those conditioners are just a thinned, usually water base, film finish and I think will cause problems outside.

Tung oil is more expensive than linseed oil because it is more scarce.  Linseed oil is made from the flaxseed plant, which is widely grown.  Tung trees only grow in small parts of the world.  Make sure you are looking at Boiled Linseed Oil, raw linseed oil will never dry.  Boiled Linseed Oil has metallic driers added to help it dry.  Honestly I don't think there is a huge difference between BLO and Tung Oil.  Tung Oil, if properly applied, can provide more moisture resistance, but it takes quite a bit of work. 

For an oil finish on a boat, I'd use something like Penofin Marine Oil, it has UV absorbers and mildewcide added, so it will be more durable than either tung or BLO.

I'd also second Eric's recommendation for Epifanes Marine Varnish.  You are doing all the work sanding, you might as well bite the bullet and use the best varnish money can buy.  Properly applied, it will look brand new years from now.  If you scuff sand and put a new top coat of Epifanes every 2 years or so (before you see any surface wear) it will last indefinitely.

You asked about the difference between a Spar Varnish and an Oil.  A Spar Varnish will give the doors a coated look.  Gloss is best because it reflects light, making the finish last longer.  If you don't want that, then use an Oil and plan on reapplying a few times a year.   Since you don't get a heavy amount of UV exposure, the oil won't break down as quickly, but you might get some mildew.

 

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I want to re-emphasize what Eric said about sanding through the grits. In your first attempt, you took jumps that were too big, and caused you more work with poor results. Also, what Mike said is true - a Random Orbit Sander (ROS), even a cheap one, is much quicker than a vibrating sheet sander, especially if you can connect a vacuum to remove the dust.

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Thanks, Mike and highlander.  Just put a random orbit sander on order.  I'll try to get more grits to reduce the jumps.

I liked the look of the Penofin marine oil, only here in the UK it runs 175 GBP per gallon!  It seems Penofin lacks any manner of distribution outside of North America.  Many of my neighbors, on the other hand, swear by a possible Norwegian equivalent - Deks Olje D1 (http://www.owatroldirect.co.uk/product/deks-olje-d1/).

It seems the Epifanes varnish may be the simplest choice, as I'm already sanding down to bare wood, but we still are reluctant to give up dreams of nicely oiled wood.

Has anyone had any experience with teak sealers?  These also seem fairly popular on teak-specific websites, the idea being to seal in the natural teak oils (sounds a lot like clear varnish to me).

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I thought Eric gave you a good plan.

I make a fair amount of furniture one year from Burma teak.Lovely wood to work.With all the natural oils built in the wood all you need is a good film finish on top.

I really doubt anything will go very deep into good teak or be any better.

Nice looking doors Good luck

 

Aj

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  • 1 year later...

Hey folks,

Many apologies for the inexcusable delay -- things got busy as they do during the rest of the renovation and that pesky real life stuff.

In the end, I went back to bare wood using stripper then sanding through all the grains.  Then I added a product called Le Tonkinois based on a recommendation from a neighbor.  Seems to be a good product, blend of tung and boiled linseed oil.  I got 3 layers on last year before the great London gloom descended, then touched up a bit when the sun came out again (6 months later...) and things dried out.  Now it seems to hold up well, adding a couple of coats each summer.

 

Thanks again for all the advice - this turned out to be quite a project, but definitely learned a lot along the way!

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