Found a great stain today....

This week ended up being the week that I had to re-assemble my sons cedar playset, it's een sitting in the backyard since we moved in back in Nov. well needless to say SWMBO decided it should be pressure washed , then of course this led to " looks kind of washed out now". So, back to Lowes I go looking for "just the right shade" of stain. The associate led us to the Cabot, wheew 30 bucks a gal. for a playset? well ok I took the samples home and held them up, (I'm thinking Thompsons water seal 15 bucks!!!, with plenty left over for other projects", well when she saw the Austrailian Timber oil in mahogany flame next to the "washed out cedar" thats all it took. Had to have THAT stain. Back to Lowes, Took about 3 hours to complete the whole set, but let me say that this stain is BEAUTIFUL, great cover and bright color. The playset looks brand new and I think much better then original stain, although very close in shade.Now, I'm looking at that "washed out" deck of mine. Maybe a light Austrailian timber is in the works.

Searcher

Cabot does look nice new- but I figured I'd pass along a coversation from work. I was rooting around in the stain cabinet trying to find a good color match for a project, and found an old can of Cabot that would have mactched almost exactly. Put it on a piece of scrap, and double-checked with the boss. He turned a few shades of green, and told me to throw that awful shit away. Evidently, it was there because an architect had requested it on a home, and while it looked great new, when it came time to refinish it a few years later, nothing he used (including more Cabot, of course) would stick to the residue of the old stain, and he ended up sanding the whole thing and lost his shirt on the deal.

Now I can't say exactly what he did or didn't try- I wasn't there when it happened, but the guy is a pretty straight shooter, and there was no particular reason why he might have made the story up. Evidently there is some sort of wax in the stain as a waterproofing agent that prevents new stain from bonding to it. With a deck, the stain doesn't hold up all that well to begin with, especially in the areas with heavy foot traffic- so I figured a heads-up might be in order.