How should I finish Spotted Gum

[sleeping-wood]

I have just completed the lower deck of a new house I am building.
I am about to commence the upper deck.
Both decks are of Spotted Gum screwed to CCA floor joists. After reading many posts here I thought I would ask for oppinions on how I should finish this decking timber. (should it be sanded, or just cleaned? and then what finish should I use?)
Both decks face west but will have a verandah roof over.....

[glock40sw]

G'day.
Any of the good deck oils will do.
Feast Watson, Cabots, etc etc

[jimj]

If I was asked to prepare your deck for coating the steps that I would undertake would be as follows. As you stated the deck is brand new timber and the wood should baby bum smooth across the grain. It would not need sanding. I would either use a commercial product from Flood called Powerlift. The active ingredient in Powerlift is sodium percarbonate aprox 30%. Wet the deck and then spread this solution over the boards. This is done best early in the morning or later in the day when the timber is not hot to walk on. Powerlift is essentially a detergent PH 13. It will bring up quite a lot of oils, tannin and just dirt. If it does start to dry off just lightly mist it with fresh water. You will need to determine how big an area you can comfortably work with. After 10-20 minutes highpressure clean off the solution and grime. Work the pressure cleaner along the grain at about 1000-1200 psi with aprox 10 l/m. You should see maybe a slight grey coating disappear as you high pressure clean. You do not need any higher pressure as it is the detergent that does most of the work. This solution is very mild and as long as it is rinsed well off plants and gras will not harm anything. If you don't have a high pressure cleaner use the normal hose and a scrubbing brush. Make sure that you thoroughly rinse off. You can also achieve the same result with any napisan type product. No name Woolworths will work as the active ingredient is still 30%sodium percarbonate. I actually use 95% sodium percarbonate. Mix 200 grams of the napisan into 4 litres of WARM water and stir well. Spread this solution liberally over the wet timber and do like you would with Powerlift.
I then use Flood Spa&Deck which is 100g/litre oxalic acid PH1. This is mixed 50-50 with warm water, spread, let sit 10-20 minutes rinse off well. Your wet deck at the end of this should look stunning. You are now ready to lay down the protection of your choice. Obviously if you are using an oil based product I would allow 24-48 hours to let the timber become dry.






Spotted gum is a great looking timber for a deck and from the photos it looks outstanding


Best of luck,

JimJ www.restore-a-deck.com.au

[jimj]

Sorry for stuff up. In my last post I left out the word PREP after Spa&Deck. It should have read Flood Spa&Deck PREP. This is the oxalic based cleaner that Flood makes. You could also replace this with any of the other oxalic based timber cleaners.

My apologies,

JimJ

[Mudds]

Hi to all. Just built a deck out of spotted gum. Great timber. Used Organoil. Heard bad reports about it. The horizontal surfaces have gone black (mould?). Photos to follow of the deck if someone can tell me how to post photos.

[weisyboy]

just click the little papre clip in the reply to thread window or scroll down to the manage attache=ments option.

[jimj]

Mudds,

I have cleaned back 3-4 decks that have been coated with organoil decking oil. I can't locate the MSDS for the product but they advertise that a certain % is based on Tung oil. Many tung oil products indicate that they are for interior use only. The cleaning steps that I offered in the earlier part of the posting will work on your deck. Try a small sample patch to see what your results are. After it is clean I would apply Flood Mould action and leave it on the deck for 24 hours to kill any spores. Depending on the product that you choose you may want to consider adding the mould inhibitor by Flood VC175 to the protectant. This is sold in most places for around $15.00 for a 50 ml bottle which will treat 10 litres of coating.

Good luck and welcome to the forum

Jim J www.restore-a-deck.com.au

[Mudds]

Thanks for your reply JIMJ. I've been away working and only just got back in front of the computer. What are your thoughts on organoil is it a good product or not, if not can you recommend a good oil. I've still got 10 lts of organoil left. Hate to waste it but if it's no good on the deck I'll scrap it.
Cheers Mudds

[jimj]

I am not prepared to publicly comment on Organoil being either good or bad. As I stated in an earlier comment it based on tung oil. Every consumer has to read through all of the literature and then make a decision. I have chosen to use a waterbased acyrlic product as I have found its good points outweigh its bad points. In saying that ,I still do not believe that any company has yet created the worlds best. They all have shortcomings even the product that I use which is Flood Spa&Deck.

regards,

JimJ www.restore-a-deck.com.au