I just made some Adirondack chairs from the scraps of a refurbished cedar deck. The wood looks great after I ran it across the jointer. My question: should I let it go gray again with the weather, or should I put something on it (and if so, what?) to keep the reddish color?
Thanks,
S.
The weather is not really what is fading the wood to gray unless you consider sun light as being part of the weather.
You need UV protection to keep the color. Most outdoor varnishes will last
2 to 3 years maximum so it will be an ongoing process.
We've got a two-seater curbside grab that got tossed when one side came away from the main chair. Looks like standard cedar, hand built. Took me a couple hours and one piece of 2x10 to fix. Looks like it might have been finished with something a long time ago but we both like the smell of the cedar too much to cover it. We're going to let it go grey and see what happens. For the price of two hours and one piece of wood, we think it's worth the experiment. Looks really nice next to the lilac bush, though. :-)
My own feeling is that the varnish might be sticky in hot weather and I'm doubtful that it really increases the life of the furniture by a large amount especially if it's getting well used. Getting it under cover in wintertime would probably be more important, in my own opinion. But I don't have the experience to be sure yet.
I like Olympic Maximum Cedar Tinted oil on cedar. It's an oil, so there's no film. It's an oil so you need to reapply it every other year, or so.
A guy local to me uses the stuff on the furniture and pergolas that he sells commercially:
The cedar tinted mix is better than the clear, as the tint provides UV protection.
It's your call. I use a clear UV-protection finish on my outdoor Adirondack chairs and re-apply every two years. They still look good after 14 years, although I take them in for the winter months.
Never would I put varnish or any other film-forming finish on anything going outdoors. When the sun destroys the finish (and it will) the result is a flaking mess. I'd use a penetrating oil finish that you can just renew instead of having to sand off the old finish to put the new one on. Most cedars will form splinters if you just let it weather.
DonkeyHody "There's a difference between doing things right and doing the right things."
And bird poop is a problem with coated finishes - something to do with the acid. I prefer some sort of oil.
I'll second this!! I put a marine spar varnish on a cedar sandbox and after a year, that's what I have, a flaky mess!!
Penofin oil Has UV protection
Thanks, everyone, for the advice. I'm going to try the Olympic Maximum Cedar Tinted oil and see how it goes.
Appreciated,
S.
My vote is bring them in during off season and let them gray in the summer. I have enough stuff to maintain without adding an other thing. My gray chairs look great in my mind, Some people color there hair and some let it go gray.
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