finish yellow balau deck

[swill]

I am about to lay a yellow balau deck. i was wanting advice on how long I should wait between laying the deck and applying protective coatings of decking oil??

[Ramus]

Swill, I recently completed a "mixed red hardwood" deck and was told to wait 6 weeks before oiling. This was with well seasoned timber. I would suggest seeking advise from those who sold you the timber, as they will undoubtedly be able to give the best advise.

[Trav]

I suggest that you clean the deck immediately after laying with a deck cleaning agent (oxalyic acid stuff). Then oil it once it has dried out.

Trav

[surfdabbler]

We've just recently had a deck built with the same timber. We had other work done, and the deck was built early in the renovations, so it was probably in place for about 6 weeks before I did the finishing. I used Intergrain DWD finish, and I'm really happy with it. It's a bit more expensive when you first do it, but it is supposed to last longer between recoats, so it only takes a few years before it's cheaper than oiling, and it looks fabulous, keeping the look of the timber.

We sanded back the deck with a drum sander before finishing, only waiting a day between sanding and the first coat. Their website says "non-oily non-resinous timbers should be pretreated or coated as soon as possible before, during or after installation". I don't think yellow balau needs to weather before finishing, but as others have recommended, check with your supplier first.

We actually did the pre-treat plus 3 coats, but I'd probably go with 2 coats if I did it again. The 3rd coat darkened the wood more than I wanted and started getting a build up of brush marks, where the 2nd coat finished much smoother.

Ours is a covered deck, but this finish is designed for open decks as well.

Here's a photo...apologies for the panorama jaggies in the photo :)

http://www.wirelessdatasys.com/decksm.jpg