mekanic

Hi
I have been varnishing my Cedar garage doors for the past 15 years or so.
This time I have sanded them down to the original clean wood and now would like to protect them with something other than varnish. I like the beautiful reddish/orange look of the cedar. I thought that I may use CIL or Behr Natural Cedar Oil Treatment instead of varnish this time. Any suggestions on what types of protective coatings to use, would be greatly appreciated, thanks

jackdowson

Hey,

What did you do?

I guess it will be great idea to give orange look of the cedar.

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Jack Dowson
Garage Doors Harrogate

Handyman

Mekanic I install a lot of extior door units and all the wooden ones I cover with Minwax Helmsman spur urithain. It has a sunlight UV protection and seem to hold its shine very well. It also seals the wood very well against rain water beating down on it. The only thing I know of that is better Is spraying your doors with an automotive clear coat. But that is high dollor and take good equipment to do it right. But before you make a decision, read a few more replys. There are folks on here who do a lot more finishing work than I do.

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Collector of Old Tools
Fixer of all things broke
Expert = Drip under pressure

jerry

The last thing you want to put on an outside door is any polyurethane varnish that can be purchased at a big box store. The UV protection? is very short lived and the finish will start to crack and fall off, usually in a year or two. Marine spar varnish is whole different thing,while better it is costly.

Regards
Jerry

cabinetman

If you are really into a periodic sanding and refinising, a marine spar varnish will provide that for you. I've used Interlux "Schooner", and finishes from Epifanes, and they require 5 -7 coats for effectiveness.

I've cut my maintenance by just using an oiled finish, either BLO, or pure Tung oil. All the maintenance required is a light scrub/cleaning with a synthetic abrasive pad, like Scotchbrite, or equivalent.

One way of looking at outdoor finishes is that the wood is in a constant state of exposure to air, which means it absorbs moisture, and expells moisture. If you seal the wood you in essence stop the woods ability to equalize itself with it's ambient conditions. What I find is a failure of the "skin" of a film finish to hold up. This is just my opinion.

Tony B

I work on a lot of boats and Epifanes is literally bulletproof. You can brush or spray, I have done both. It seems kind of pricey, but if you factor in the higher percentage of solids, its actually priced competitively. Great stuff, I swear by it
http://www.epifanes.com/home.htm

Tony B