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  1. 1st August 2007, 02:42 AM #1
    hansp77
    hansp77 is offline Senior Member
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    Default Merbau- again, this time on a boat...

    this piccy was posted by UteMad

    on this thread
    http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...t=49270&page=2

    I am wondering how one goes about getting the two colours on the left, Driftwood and White.

    The situation is, I have used some leftover merbau for some timber seating hanging off the back of my boat on the new pushpit I have built (yes, I know, heavy and not ideal but it was at hand and thus much cheaper than purchasing teak or white beach- as well, my replacing the old rusted iron pushpit with the new lighter stainless one, I have probably come out even with weight anyway), and I would like to get as much colour out of the timber as I can and get it as close to weathered white/silver/grey as possible.

    my plans are to totally finish pre-drilling, fitting and sanding the timber pieces (one more half day should do it as 90% of the work is done now) and then as they will fit lengthwise in our bathtub/shower I will leave them in there to 'weather' and soak and wash out the tannin for a few weeks/months (hopefully weeks not months). Now and again I plan to give it a soak in nappisan to help the process along.
    Lets just say, I have very patient girlfriend .

    As it is seating, and I am concerned about splinters and cracking, I am considering oiling it after the colour has faded to stop it drying out excessively. Also as my sailboat is on a swing mooring, in spite of netting we do attract a fair share of bird crap, so I would hope that oiling might offer a little more resistance.

    So I guess my questions are,
    how to get to white/silver/grey (soon)?
    after I get to this, should I oil?
    I don't mind oiling quite regularly, and would naturally reach for either my tung or linseed- would this be OK?
    Or should I just leave it raw? (If I was going teak I would have gone raw)

    any other thoughts?
    any yes, photos will follow soon,
    thanks,
    Hans.
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  3. 1st August 2007, 10:01 PM #2
    hansp77
    hansp77 is offline Senior Member
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    Default

    this is a shameless bump,

    no takers?

    main question,
    How do I get my Merbau to go white or silver, rather than dirty old grey?

    cheers,
    Hans.
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  4. 1st August 2007, 11:39 PM #3
    TermiMonster's Avatar
    TermiMonster
    TermiMonster is offline SENIOR MEMBER
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    Default

    I'm no expert, but reading the link that you supplied, seems like treating the timber with Spa-N-Deck , obviously a proprietary system, you can accomplish that colour.
    How's that for service, a search on google comes up with: http://www.floodaustralia.net/brochures/Spa-N-Deck.pdf
    cheers
    TM
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  5. 2nd August 2007, 08:15 PM #4
    hansp77
    hansp77 is offline Senior Member
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    Thanks TM,
    I gave flood Australia a call this afternoon and had a good talk with one of their experts on Spa-N-Deck.
    I may use the product or I may not.
    I have finished shaping and sanding the timber and now have it soaking in the bath (after I had a shower over it ).

    The imediate results were rather impressive.
    The water within 5 minutes had gone a strong tea colour.

    I then put Napisan Plus in and was amazed to see a rapid and immediate reaction. Great clouds of black started instantly drifting off the timber and an oily sheen formed on top.

    I am going to repeat this process untill either no more tannin comes out, or untill my girlfreind cracks it over having to stand over a pile of timber when she showers

    If it looks good when I finish this process I may just oil it, otherwise I will just leave it bare to fade in the sun and weather out on my boat. Later on I may consider Spa-N-Deck.

    Cheers, Hans.
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  6. 5th September 2007, 11:53 PM #5
    hansp77
    hansp77 is offline Senior Member
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    Default

    here is a quick shot I just snapped tonight.
    I am going to put the pushpit on the boat tomorrow.

    the Merbau soaked in the bath (from our showers) for around 3 weeks, with intermitent napisanings- until the water almost started to remain clear after a day of soaking.

    then I re-sanded all the raised grain up to 3200 and have saturated it in pure tung oil for the last few days.
    This shot shows a bit of dried oil bloom that came out of the pores today (let alone all the oil scum I have to clean off the metal), that I will rub off by giving it a wet (oil) steel wool (000) rub tomorrow on the boat once I have it bolted down.
    Not the best shot, but you get the picture, and I will update it tomorrow.
    There are many imperfections on this, but for having made if from scratch, from design and a pile of stainless steel and timber- as a newbie who is learning all as he goes, I am pretty damn happy with it-
    Fingers crossed the fitting goes well
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