Making my first piece of ‘outdoor’ furniture and would appreciate advice: How to oil/stain/protect Cypress.
Piece I am making is a 4′ x 5′ table. 5/4 x 11 pieces for top, m&t into breadboard ends. Space between top pieces to allow water to run off/between. Mahogany pegs and TItebond III holding center of each tenon in place. All wood is flat sawn.
Any advice that will get me to a “natural” look while guarding against the roughness that raw wood develops outdoors is greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Replies
I've made some of Norm Abrams Adirondack furniture. I used a product called Cuprinol with excellent results up to 3 years between coats. Unfortunately Sherwin Williams bought it out and replaced it with their own brand, (Deckscapes), they claim its better and will last longer. Norm's web page list a product called Sikkens. Hope one of these helps.
BigDaddy.
wobeba,
Been working with cypress for many years and still not have found anything that would really do a good job of "keeping a natural look". Everything I have tried looks kinda "rough" after more than a few months.
The only thing I have found was to just plan on re-coating at least once a year. I sand it smooth thru 220 grit and put something on it. If you want even coating it's best to treat it with a softwood conditioner first.
I have 4 chairs, a table and 2 gliders outside right now and have been out of doors for about 3 years. They have a very nice smooth sliver-grey look to them.
Good luck and hope you find something that will work for you.
Jimmy
as always I wish you enough
JIMMY! HELP.. Sorry I stold the Post...
I was going to make a tub base (whirlpool kind indoors.. Like a bath tub)..
I was thinking of using cypress.. I do not plan to use a shower.. Just the tub..
What finish would you use??
Or should I just use tile?
Edited 5/19/2005 11:00 am ET by Will George
Will,
I'd use Cypress. What you want to find if ya can is "sinker cypress". This is the old growth stuff from the bottom of the bayou. Bald cypress is to stay away from. It grows just about anywhere. So if someone says they got it from anywhere but the deep south, I would be suspicious.
You do not have to have the sinker stuff, but it's nice.
As far as a finish indoors use anything ya want. Just make sure to use the conditioner on it before you stain it or finish it. Same stuff you use for pine and maple. If you don't the dark grain will be even darker, gives you that zebra look.
I like using the conditioner and then using just Watco dark Danish oil. I just like dark wood.
Hope that helps. Good luck with your tub project.
Jimmy
as always I wish you enough
Stay away from bald cypress? How come?
Stay away from bald cypress? How come?
I'm askin' too!
Bald is a different type of cypress. It is just ok. Doesn't have much more weather and bug resistance than regular pine. It has to be primed and painted to protect it just like pine or most other softwoods. It grows on hills and even in dry areas.
The cypress from the south that has made the name "cypress" famous, grows in the water or right at the water's edge. It has the famous root structure called "knees". I have seen old growth cypress knees 10+ feet tall!!! Have seen old growth cypress stumps that were over 15 ft in diameter.
One day I'll ride over to the Pearl River Swamp and take some photos and post 'em. Their worth seeing for sure.
Hope that helps.
Jimmy
as always I wish you enough
Hmmm ...
Far as I know, only two basic kinds of trees grow in the US that we call 'cypress.' There's Southern 'bald cypress' (Taxodium Distichum) and there's unrelated 'Italian cypress' or 'Mediterranean cypress' (Cupressus sempervirens) that grows out west and in other dry locales. Below, a picture of each.
Bald cypress is the stuff that grows in wet lowlands all over the South (yep, including the Pearl River swamps, where I hunted cottonmouths as a kid, for the $3-a-head bounty that the State of Mississippi paid back then!) - this is the one that has knees, is a softwood. 'Pecky cypress' paneling comes from it after a fungus (Stereum Taxodii) attacks it.
Italian cypress is a tall, skinny juniper-lookin' thing, grows in CA and in the Mediterranean - Van Gogh painted 'em in France.
I am 90%+ certain that ALL lumber commercially sold in the US as 'cypress' is bald cypress - and I'm just about that sure that all 'sinker' cypress is also bald cypress - just bald cypresses that sank en route to the mill! Italian cypress is too bushy-branchy to yield lumber, and I don't think there are any other trees we call 'cypress' that are commonly milled.
(There's another one in CA related to the Italian, called 'Monterey cypress,' [Cupressus macrocarpa] but again, I don't think there's any commercial lumber from it.)
If I'm wrong (and it does happen - embarrassingly often), let me know? Maybe 'cypress' is like 'mahogany' or 'rosewood' - every wide spot in the road has a different tree that goes by the name?
Clay
You are correct and I stand down as the dummy. I had my cypresses mixed up is my only defense.....not much of one....
Southern Bald is the better of the two. I still stand by my uses for them though. I have experienced some bad deals with the "Italian Cypress". Was sold some as just cypress several years ago and it does not work as well as the Bald does. It rotted rather fast ( 1 year ).
Now to further this discussion there is times when you will get 2nd or 3rd growth Bald that is not as good as the old stuff.
There is a web site http://www.customcypresssawmill.com that can give more info than I can even think about. I buy a good bit from him. BTW he ships about 2 or 3 18 wheeler loads to Miami ever week.
Still confused......lol I live in that world
Jimmy
as always I wish you enough
Hey, I didn't even know that they ever sold lumber from any 'other' cypresses, so don't go apologizin' to me! If'n somebody offered me cypress, it never woulda occurred to me to even ask if it was bald, so I learned a lesson too ...
Where are you that you'd run over to the Pearl for pics? I was raised in Jackson.
I agree with all the rest, especially the advice about using a sealer coat like you would with pine. Otherwise it can be (though is not always) blotchy. A guy I share shop space with recently did a large built-in from cypress, and IIRC he did not seal it first, just sprayed lacquer. I'm sure he tested a piece first, and it was pretty tight-grained. (Maybe first growth? I'd be surprised if he was able to still find first-growth available in commercial quantity, though, other than sinkers.) Looked absolutely great, although I confess I had very little faith that it would.
But, considering the original question, wobeba - I don't think there's likely to be any finish that won't get rough after more than a year outdoors. And, since any finish will need renewing (repeat that a coupla times, for emphasis), I'd take ease of renewal into account, and use something oil-based, and no urethane resins. I'm not a big fan of spar varnish - don't like the way it feels soft in the sun, and if it's not maintained religiously, it can look truly awful once it cracks or moisture gets under it. Oil-based finish also wants maintenance, but if ignored it just wears off and leaves you with bare gray cypress (but only on the wear/weathered surfaces of course, so neglecting an oil-based finish would still get you a mismatched finish, and would never look as even as it would if it had no finish from the start.)
That is, if I used any finish at all - on cypress outdoors, unless it was gonna stand on wet ground (in which case finish the feet bottoms), I don't think I'd put any finish on it at all - make sure to assemble with marine epoxy or titebond III or some other glue specifically made for outdoor use, and let it turn gray.
Then, if you want to avoid/repair the rough texture, maybe try this - Once or twice a year rub it down HARD with a wooden sanding block and very-fine paper, maybe even 600. My intent with this plan would be to try to burnish it smooth rather than sand it smooth, so that perhaps that smoothness would eventually last longer and longer, without renewing. Just a guess, though - it makes some sense, but I haven't tried it.
Nice thing is, no-finish allows you the option - you could try it, and if it didn't make you happy, you could then put on a finish - it'd be much, much harder to go the other way and remove a finish if you decide that mantaining it is too much trouble. To the extent that the roughness is raised grain, it will pretty much go away after the first couple of times you sand it after it's been wet.
Now that I think about it, that's the first thing I'd do - flood-wet it and raise the grain -- at least twice, sanding it down very thoroughly each time, going up pretty fine (at least 320 or 400) on the final sanding, so it could start its outdoor life with as smooth a surface as possible, and no grain to raise.
One last thought, wobeba - be careful sanding it, always use a sanding block on every single surface, because with cypress, the earlywood is SO much softer than the latewood that you are certain to get the sandblasted-wood hills-and-valleys effect otherwise.
Naturally, let us know what you do, and show us pictures!
Clay
Hey Clay,
Thanks for all the info. I live in Lumberton. About 15 mins from Hwy 26 at Poplarville and 20 mins then to Old Man River Swamp, just on the MS side of the Pearl. It's a large preserve.
I bought some cypress from a guy who said it was "Western Cypress" and yes it was very knotty. Sooooooo looks like someone was trying to sell it as cypress. It's one of those things you live and learn about.
Take care.
Jimmy
as always I wish you enough
The products mentioned above by Big Daddy under the trade name Sikkens (a German company, sold here by Watkins) include both clear and tinted finishes. It is a two-part coating similar to (or maybe the same as) epoxy. It's a bit expensive, but a friend of mine in the door business uses it exclusively for outside entry doors.
wobeba,
I have made some small projects with cypress, one I oiled with marine teak oil, the others I left alone. All have held up very well to winters on the southern end of Lake Michigan! Some of the things are more than three yrs.old and have just turned Gray / silver which ever you prefer, not unlike cedar in shade. and the wood does not look rough, & does not have a lot of dark / light stripes in it
I applied oil every month, when it was warm, but just got tired of doing that, and I did have some problems with glue joints and that oil, so I stopped oiling
but man did it look beautiful when the oil was fresh .... my boss also liked the coconut smell the oil had
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled