Finishing Western Red Cedar

**vk3em** · 12th July 2005, 10:31 PM

I have a large (8ftx8ft) Western Red Cedar feature wall outside.

It was previously stained (before I bought the house) and left to fade.

Over the past week I have carefully sanded the wall with 60 grit to remove the old stain.

Note: I was using a 1/3 sheet sander to do this, but ended up buying a random orbital sander. The orbital sander did the job 5 times faster! Now I'm spewing I did not get one earlier.

I have now taken the wall down to 80 grit.

Because of the outside location, I'm going to use 3 coats of Sikkens HLS and one coat of Sikkens filter 7.

What grit should I take the wall to first? I'm worried that if I make it too smooth it won't take the stain properly.

120 is fairly smooth with Western Red Cedar, 180 is very smooth and 240 is like a baby's bottom.

Any idea?

Luke

**soundman** · 12th July 2005, 11:42 PM

Every one who has purchased a half decent ROS wonders why they wasted their time before.

As far as sanding, Its a house. House painters call 120 gritt "fine". There is no point going past that even on interiors.
80 gritt is probably plenty.
cheers

**kiwigeo** · 12th July 2005, 11:52 PM

Sikkens an ok product for exterior use but Ive found the Intergrain line of exterior finishes much better.....was developed with CSIRO assistance for Australian conditions. I have red cedar window frames on my humble abode and have found the Intergrain product has proved very durable on same.

Wood surfaces were sanded back to bare timber (had used oil stain previously) and then treated with one coat of intergrain Dimension 4 pretreatment followed by two coats of DWD transparent water based finish. The latter is also available in coloured versions.

Cheers

Martin

**Theva** · 13th July 2005, 07:30 PM

Vk3em,

If you are planning to use HLS, then up to 180 grit. After two coates wipe with some W&D 400 or so.

Two more coats of HLS will be my choice because, IMHO Filter7 is more plastic like.

Cheers,
Theva

**vk3em** · 15th July 2005, 01:21 AM

Thanks for the tips guys.

I searched back to my "Water Stained Window Sills" Thread and reminded myself of all the correspondence (Thanks Theva).

I ended up doing 3 coats of HLS on the Window Sills and one coat of Filter 7. I don't plan on owning the place forever (a bit too small) but the Filter 7 does give it a nice sheen (the window sills)

I don't think I will use it outside due to the increased chance of needing a top up coat of HLS after a few years.

Interestingly - I'm noticed that my el-chepo random orbital sander (Bosch green job) has been leaving swirling marks on the western red cedar. I didn't notice any marks at 60 or 80 grit but did notice them at 120 and 180 grit. I guess Western Red Cedar being soft is much more sensitive to slight imperfections in equipment.

The papers are Aluminium Oxide, which is probably to hard for the Cedar (Garnite would be more appropiate I think - but I couldn't get the pads at the time).

After running over the work at 180 grit I cleaned up the swirls with the random sheet sander at 180 grit. This seemed to work fine. I will probably thin down the first few coats (as you suggested) as I'm a bit worried the stuff won't dry properly in this colder weather.

Thanks
Luke

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