Hi, I am looking for answers to achieving a super glassy REDWOOD finish for an outdoor bar table.
I would like a super slick looking redwood finish for an outdoor bar table, the finish needs to be clear and shows the nice grain of the redwood, but mainly it needs to be like described below. I saw an example at a home show that I want to achieve.
The wife and I were at a home show and at the show was a guy that sells very nice redwood sitting tables, bar tables, seats and such. This was not your typical redwood outdoor stuff.
This stuff was the nicest redwood finished outdoor items I have ever seen. The finish was very clear, shows all the color of the wood, has a very high shine and feels like glass to the touch, the main point being that it was very shiny and like I said , looked like it had a piece of glass over it because it was so shiny/reflective. It would be comparable to those old woody boats you see, that are all polished up, that’s the kind of look I want to get.
The guy would not say how he did it, but said he uses TONG oil , does twenty five coats, and guarantees that it will last a life time, all you have to do is apply the TONG oil once a year , and if you buy one, he will tell you what brand to get. Course the cheapest one was $1700, not to say it wasn’t worth it, but I didn’t quite have that on me…
he also said there are 30 brands of TONG oil, and only one works like this….
So, of course I said to my wife, I can do that, get my redwood to look just like that…and she said no way can you ever get it like that…which might be true, but I want to try.
My plan is, to take a 1 foot piece of redwood, and do ALL of the correct things to it, ie sanding, number of coats etc, and see if I can get one little piece of wood to look like what I saw. If I can do that, then I can build my outdoor bar table.
And now for the questions.
GOAL= get a finish that I saw, to achieve the look that shows grain of redwood, no stain ,all natural color, very shiny / slick to the touch, feels like glass, looks like a layer of glass is on top of the wood…I want to say looks like it had a varnish or shellac over but he said it doesn’t …. once a year reapply, no problem. If it’s not tong oil, that is fine.
1) What exact product or products do I need.
2) What are the exact sanding steps I should do , including grit #s.
3) What are the application steps
4) What are the maintance steps.
Thanks ever so much if you can help me out. Mark
Replies
A fairy tale. It's spelled "tung" oil. An oil will not give that kind of gloss. Waterlox or similar tung-oil varnishes will give a nice gloss, but not for a lifetime. Not unless you keep the furniture in the house and only take it outside while you use it. Marine Waterlox will give a nice gloss finish with 4 to 6 coats. You can recoat every year and refinish about every 3 years. Nothing holds up any great length of time outdoors. Ask him for a customer reference.
Why on earth would you want such a thing anyway?
Despite what you were told, it sounds more like a two part epoxy finish that is mixed and then poured on in one very thick coat, it is often used on bar tops. After the epoxy hardened, it was probably buffed out like an an auto finish.
It is possible that the wood was treated with tung oil first to bring out the grain, and a little tung oil was applied after the epoxy was buffed out, but no primarily oil based finish, that I know of, would look like what you described and hold up that well.
Very few finishes last forever when exposed to intense sun, I'd try to get a look at an older table with that finish before going to the trouble of trying to recreate it.
John W.
Edited 3/11/2004 3:23 pm ET by JohnW
Edited 3/11/2004 3:26 pm ET by JohnW
Redwood,
What JohnW said! I have a few comments to add.
Epoxy will give you the look you're after--after much patient rubbing out.
If you fiberglass the redwood with epoxy, you'll get a very abrasion resistant finish.
If you completely encapsulate the wood with epoxy, it will insulate the wood from the local environs so that changes in humidity will not affect the moisture content of the wood: i.e., the wood will not move with changes in the humidity.
Epoxy does not last forever outdoors. In time the sun's ultra-violet light will degrade the epoxy, turning it cloudy and soft.
You can delay the epoxy's degradation from UV by coating it with spar varnish. Good spar varnish filters out UV and greatly reduces its effects.
Spar varnish is tough to rub out to a flawless, glass-smooth finish. Spar varnish is formulated to remain soft, so it can move with out-door wood; but its softness also makes it almost impossible to rub out to a glassy shine. It can be done, but IME not easily.
Perhaps others will chime in with a finish that will both protect from UV and can have a glassy finish. I hope there is one.
Alan
You can use a stardard marine exterior rated varnish to overcoat epoxy. It contains as much UV inhibitors as marine spar varnish but it is also harder and more durable. It contains more resin that the flexible spar varnish. Interior rated varnish contains an even higher resin to oil content and gives the hardest finish but contain no UV inhibitor.
I am not a fan of using epoxy as a finish particularly on a soft wood like redwood. The epoxy will crack and craze when it gets dinged from something dropping on it--very likely as an outdoor table. Once the surface is penetrated, water gets between the finish and the wood and the finish begins to flake and the wood takes on moisture which causes it to expand which further degrades the finish. Compounding the problem is that epoxy is almost impossible to repair and there is no good way to remove the finish.
Ask a boater, nothing is forever outdoors. The best strategy is to expect that periodic maintenence is required. I like to use oil finishes and renew them periodically. Also, spend the money to get a good, UV resistant, breathable cover. That or keeping it under cover when not being used is the best way to keep something like this looking goood.
Howie,
I didn't know that there was such a thing as "standard marine exterior rated varnish." There certainly wasn't one the last time I built a boat--more than twenty years ago. Thank you. I learned something.
I must disagree, though, that even with a very soft redwood beneath it, a hard knock would make epoxy "crack and craze." A good epoxy, properly mixed, remains very flexible. It will bend and dent, but I've never seen it crack--even with me ramming the dock, colliding with the trailer, and otherwise abusing it. Boats of any size flex and "work" in water (to say nothing of pulling them out of the water and onto a trailer) but I've never heard that this has ever harmed the epoxy. Epoxy's durability, and its ability to take such abuse, is partly why it has endeared itself to boat builders.
Epoxy used with fiberglass will make it less likely that the barrier will be breached. Like the steel in reinforced concrete, fiberglass makes epoxy a bit stiffer without making it more brittle. Epoxy and fiberglass is less susceptible to damage than is epoxy alone.
Alan
Clear coat that does not darken redwood nor give darker wet look
I recently coated redwood front doors with a product called Varathane Spar Urethane (water based). They advertised that this product does not darken the wood tone. However, when we applied the finish, it gave it a "wet look" which ultimately is a darker tone. Will epoxy provide a clear coat on the redwood that will not darken nor give a darker "wet look"?
Looking out my office window at about a bazzillion board feet of standing Redwood, I can tell from great experience you Do Not want a Redwood Bar Top unless you want the top to look VERY rustic and DO NOT want to gloss finish it.
It is an extremely soft wood and and will dent simply looking at it. My suggeston would be to simply put a good exterior preservative on it and cover the top with a piece of glass.
__________________________________________________________
Michael in San Jose
Freedom from mental disturbance is the very most for which one can hope.
Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
Polymerized tung oil can be built to a high-gloss finish, so maybe that''s what he was talking about. Sutherland Welles polymerized tung oil finishes are sold through Garret Wade. They do give a nice result, but it's not quite what you describe; more like a varnish. If you put on 25 coats and then rubout and buff, I bet you'd get what you were looking for. It would also be a very protective finish. But you'd still have that soft redwood underneath...
Another option is this guy's approach, based on boatbuilding:
http://www.smithandcompany.org/
Uses a pentrating epoxy to seal, harden, and stabilize the wood; then a 2-part polyurethane for a high-gloss UV-inhibiting coat. He claims 8+ years in outdoor exposure without degradation. YMMV.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein
http://www.albionworks.net
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