Merbau- again, this time on a boat...

[hansp77]

this piccy was posted by UteMad
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k287/utemad/spacolours-1.jpg
on this thread
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=49270&page=2

I am wondering how one goes about getting the two colours on the left, Driftwood and White.

The situation is, I have used some leftover merbau for some timber seating hanging off the back of my boat on the new pushpit I have built (yes, I know, heavy and not ideal but it was at hand and thus much cheaper than purchasing teak or white beach- as well, my replacing the old rusted iron pushpit with the new lighter stainless one, I have probably come out even with weight anyway), and I would like to get as much colour out of the timber as I can and get it as close to weathered white/silver/grey as possible.

my plans are to totally finish pre-drilling, fitting and sanding the timber pieces (one more half day should do it as 90% of the work is done now) and then as they will fit lengthwise in our bathtub/shower I will leave them in there to 'weather' and soak and wash out the tannin for a few weeks/months (hopefully weeks not months). Now and again I plan to give it a soak in nappisan to help the process along.
Lets just say, I have very patient girlfriend:wink: .

As it is seating, and I am concerned about splinters and cracking, I am considering oiling it after the colour has faded to stop it drying out excessively. Also as my sailboat is on a swing mooring, in spite of netting we do attract a fair share of bird crap, so I would hope that oiling might offer a little more resistance.

So I guess my questions are,
how to get to white/silver/grey (soon)?
after I get to this, should I oil?
I don't mind oiling quite regularly, and would naturally reach for either my tung or linseed- would this be OK?
Or should I just leave it raw? (If I was going teak I would have gone raw)

any other thoughts?
any yes, photos will follow soon,
thanks,
Hans.

[hansp77]

this is a shameless bump,

no takers?

main question,
How do I get my Merbau to go white or silver, rather than dirty old grey?

cheers,
Hans.

[TermiMonster]

I'm no expert, but reading the link that you supplied, seems like treating the timber with Spa-N-Deck , obviously a proprietary system, you can accomplish that colour.
How's that for service, a search on google comes up with: http://www.floodaustralia.net/brochures/Spa-N-Deck.pdf
cheers
TM

[hansp77]

Thanks TM,
I gave flood Australia a call this afternoon and had a good talk with one of their experts on Spa-N-Deck.
I may use the product or I may not.
I have finished shaping and sanding the timber and now have it soaking in the bath (after I had a shower over it:wink: ).

The imediate results were rather impressive.
The water within 5 minutes had gone a strong tea colour.

I then put Napisan Plus in and was amazed to see a rapid and immediate reaction. Great clouds of black started instantly drifting off the timber and an oily sheen formed on top.

I am going to repeat this process untill either no more tannin comes out, or untill my girlfreind cracks it over having to stand over a pile of timber when she showers:D

If it looks good when I finish this process I may just oil it, otherwise I will just leave it bare to fade in the sun and weather out on my boat. Later on I may consider Spa-N-Deck.

Cheers, Hans.

[hansp77]

here is a quick shot I just snapped tonight.
I am going to put the pushpit on the boat tomorrow.

the Merbau soaked in the bath (from our showers) for around 3 weeks, with intermitent napisanings- until the water almost started to remain clear after a day of soaking.

then I re-sanded all the raised grain up to 3200 and have saturated it in pure tung oil for the last few days.
This shot shows a bit of dried oil bloom that came out of the pores today (let alone all the oil scum I have to clean off the metal), that I will rub off by giving it a wet (oil) steel wool (000) rub tomorrow on the boat once I have it bolted down.
Not the best shot, but you get the picture, and I will update it tomorrow.
There are many imperfections on this, but for having made if from scratch, from design and a pile of stainless steel and timber- as a newbie who is learning all as he goes, I am pretty damn happy with it-
Fingers crossed the fitting goes well