Garden furniture - stain or oil?

capeverde

ferf1223 wrote: »

Hi - thanks both for your useful replies...as far as what type of wood, I don't know for sure - but some research indicates it may be acacia (the set was bought at IKEA about 6 years ago, so not a particularly nice type of wood, not totally cheap but was maybe £80 for the set of 2 chairs and a table)...so I'm thinking hard wood as opposed to soft, though could be wrong.

I'm planning on staining/oiling it back to the reddish colour it was when it was first purchased - having sanded it, it doesn't have a nice enough colour or grain to really justify trying to bring out either...so that's why I'm planning on going with a red/mahogany colour for it.

This isn't going to be enough to tell what type of wood, but you can see that it's not pretty enough to leave it particularly natural...and no, I am not done sanding yet.

definitely hardwood as too thin for softwood furniture. I would guess its an african teak like iroko. Very straight grain but when oiled has a reddish brown hue. As I mentioned it will always go back to grey after a few months in the sun. If it is, some regular stains or finishes wont work very well because of the natural oil that wood produces. Bit of danish oil, about 4 coats would be good.

capeverde

this is the type of heavy duty furniture we make with the microflex coating

leveller2911

DVardysShadow wrote: »

My experience with unboiled linseed is that it was completely absorbed - it took about a week in autumn. My concerns about boiled linseed would be that the added driers would cause the oil to polymerize on the surface, before being absorbed into the wood.

With any oil the mistake people make is coating the timber and walking away.You need to keep an eye on the drying and just before it starts to go tacky you wipe over again.In doing this you re-oil the areas where the oil has penetrated deeper and you get a more uniformed finish.
Using any oil on raw/new timber will be completely obsorbed on the 1st coat.Different timbers have diffent densities ,for instance Oak is denser than Iroko which is denser than softwood.

Different parts of an Oak tree have different densities.The Heartwood (near the centre of the tree) is denser than the sapwood(near the bark) and as such will take less oil to get that uniformed finish.

From my experience raw linseed oil goes sticky/tacky and never really dries.You get everything floating in the air sticking to it from leaves to flies and basically it looks pants and heaven forbi sitting on it with decent clothes on...

Osmo oil, Danish oil ,teak oil and tung oil are all better than linseed oil be it raw or boiled.

leveller2911

capeverde wrote: »

this is the type of heavy duty furniture we make with the microflex coating

So can you clarify Capeverde is Microflex UV protected? if so can you post a link as I'm genuinely interested to know of a product that is a clear finish and UV protected......

capeverde

leveller2911 wrote: »

So can you clarify Capeverde is Microflex UV protected? if so can you post a link as I'm genuinely interested to know of a product that is a clear finish and UV protected......

Microflex is normally a two part system, with a clear base coat then a transparent top coat (various colours available) as I mentioned, small welsh company called premierQ sells it to me. Give them a call and ask for Dave, he's extremely knowledgeable and will help you out. He's in his 70's and done this all his life.

http://www.premierq.co.uk/home/

leveller2911

capeverde wrote: »

Microflex is normally a two part system, with a clear base coat then a transparent top coat (various colours available) as I mentioned, small welsh company called premierQ sells it to me. Give them a call and ask for Dave, he's extremely knowledgeable and will help you out. He's in his 70's and done this all his life.

I will do cheers, I did look at the data sheets on the site but it makes no mention of UV protection on a clear finish.

I know normally the UV protection is in the colour pigment of a product which obviously means it would be a coloured finish which is not what most people want... As far as I know there no clear finish on the market thats UV protected so all the colour from the timber will fade within months..

Cheers though and I will contact them and find out.

Russe11

as some on mentions about tung oil would be an ideal oil, just its the most expensive option I would of thought.

Another thing to note on the cuprinol garden shades is that they have discontinued a couple of the colours I think and replaced them, so by visiting stores that don't have that high turnover of stock you might find other colours.

capeverde

leveller2911 wrote: »

From reading the data sheet on Microflex its not UV protected in clear form.Uv protection in coating is contained within the colour pigment so treating any hardwood/softwood with a clear product is a waste of money if you want to keep the natural colour.So people need to use a stain to UV protect the timber which is never looks natural..

Like you say Iroko,Sapele and teaks will all naturally grey withing 12-18 months and theres no way round that problem yet afaik.....

Hi there, just to update, spoke to Dave at premierQ and he has confirmed he can add UV protection to a clear product. Its not done as standard but he can mix it on request.

Alan_M_2

Liberon Garden Furniture Oil.

I've used a few products from this company and they've been outstanding. We do our decking annualy with their teak deck oil and it gives lovely rich warm red colour.

Nicepeach

ferf1223 wrote: »

I'm in the process of refinishing some garden furniture - currently in the sanding stages.

I'm confused about the products on offer though - if there are any benefits of oil over stain or vice versa...every search I've tried to do for this question just seems to bring up product listings and they all (naturally) claim to offer premium protection.

I gather that the colour choice for oils is more limited, but it does seem that both oil and stain are available in my chosen colour.

Ideally I want something that will protect the furniture the best - so I have to go through this process less often...we sadly neglected the furniture for 6 years and it looked awful, but initial sanding seems to indicate that it will be perfectly lovely once it's refinished...but not a job I really want to do every year or two if I can avoid it.

Thanks for any help at all.

Hi, I'm certainly not an expert but thought I would pass on my tips regarding this.

I used to sand my garden set every year & apply Danish Oil with a cloth. It's not a posh set, wasn't very expensive from B&Q.

Last year & this year I have employed new tactics, used my Dad's jet washer to give it a really good clean & this was great for getting all the bird poop out of all the nooks & crannies and removing all the green slime around legs and also left it nice & smooth with no need at all for sanding. Then I just gave all the bolts etc and joints (it's a fold up set but I don't ever fold it up!) a good squirt of WD40 & tightened them with an alan key. Then I bought a cover large enough to cover table & chairs (less than £5 from Wilkos) and I try to remember to cover it up every night.

I'm really pleased with the clean results and don't mind that it isn't coloured as such, it's just the grey colour of faded wood but doesn't look grubby, more shabby chic (I like to think...)

Just thought I'd share my ideas as everyone I've told that I've jetwashed my wooden furniture didn't seem to have thought of trying it or seemed to think it would be detrimental to the furniture but it's still as strong as when it was bought.

If I wasn't idle I would do the sensible thing and fold it up and store it away in the garage for the winter...:rotfl: