Water stained window sills - How to repair and finish

[vk3em]

Hi Theva,

I can concur with the dust up the nose, in eyes, hair and on my glasses. (wipe - Ahh Now I can see)

Since I have both Natural (077) and Teak (086?) I will try them both on Tassie Oak. My original plan was to use two coats of Teak and one of Natural. However, after reading up last night about staining, the finish will also depend on what grit paper I finish with.

As a small experiment, I am going to take some Tassie Oak and sand some to 180, 240 and 320. I will then try Natural and Teak by themselves and then combined. My only reason for a Teak stain is that all the skirting boards and window frames in the place are done in Teak. However, I feel Teak is a bit of a dated color, sort of late 70's early 80's type feel, so I'm not sure about this one. Teak isn't Teak either - I've found it to be anywhere between light brown to bright orange (yuk!).

I ended up taking my cans of Sikkens back to the Big B store for a refund (Whilst looking for SIA sandpaper I found Paintmobile in Dandenong who are a lot cheaper and the service is excellent).

I will take the thinning option into mind when trying to get the right color (I guess I will have to balance it against what grit I finish with). The guy at Paintmobile did say Sikkens HLS is NOT like the stains we normally use in Australia, you BRUSH it on not wipe it on (wite a rag or whatever).

The bosch dust collector on the 1/3 random actually works very well! The problem I have with that unit is the footprint of the sander is the same size as the body - and when you run it up to the glass - well, you can imagine the noise and vibration!

After looking at only additional sanders I could afford in my price range - The GMC sandcat and B&D Sandwhatever, well, they both looked pretty average.
A bit of thinking, a $1 bit of dressed pine and some stick on velcro has allowed me to make numerous wooden jigs to sand all the window edges and corners. If I really got fancy I could even attach it to a vac with some mods - Now thats a rainy day project - vacumn dust extraction for a hand sander!

A few questions for Theva, what did you thin the stain with? Turps or something else?

When should I apply putty to holes and deep dents? I have read both before and after the first coat, although more people have suggested after.

Thanks for all the help so far.

Cheers
Luke


After

[journeyman Mick]

Luke, traditionally putty is applied after the first coat. This was done so that the bare timber wouldn't suck the linseed oil out of the putty. Nowadays with all the putty substitutes it may not be as important, check the manufacturer's recommendations if in doubt.

Mick

[Theva]

Luke,

Paint thinner and turps are suitable but I used paint thinner (not lacquer thinner) because of quicker drying times. up to 30% for first coat, much less for second coat (say 10%). HLS doen't desolve in sprits; any hydrocarbon solvent will do.

I used timbermate putty after the first coat. When used on bare timber, it acts as a sanding sealer reducing stain absorbtion around it - leads to changes in depth of colour (I tried both, prefer the after version).

After it dries off, wipe the area clean with a moist rag, it works better than sanding.

Good luck.

Theva