# Tips for Teak Needed Please



## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

I bought a used set of Teak patio furniture today and I am hoping to get some tips for refinishing it before I dig into this project. I'd appreciate any info, tips, or warnings you guys could provide. I've never worked with teak so I'm not sure what the best finishing methods are.

I plan to get the old finish and grayed wood off with a mixture of scraping, planing and sanding. I've included a pic of the finish that the previous owner applied about 5 years ago. I'm going to disassemble the parts that are bolted together with brass bolts. Everything is still really tight for a 15 year set of patio furniture.

Re-assemble and re-finish with Watco Teak Oil from the Depot…. This is where I really need advice. Is teak oil the best finish? Do I just need to re-apply annually? Is this similar to applying Danish Oil? Is there a better finish out there that I should look at?

Also, there are a couple badges on the table that say "Nauteak Maritime Heritage" a google search didn't turn up much", does anyone know who this is? I was just curious because this seems like a well built set and I was interested in finding some history about the company.

Thanks in advance for any tips you can offer.

Edit: Sorry for the sideways pics!


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## mrg (Mar 10, 2010)

For my teak patio furniture I use teak oil on it every season. When it starts getting grey go heavy.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

Next time buy plastic outdoor furniture. Not as nice as wood but a ton less work and upkeep.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

Thanks for fixing the pics! I'll probably agree with you by the time I'm done with these


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## Ripper70 (Nov 30, 2015)

My dad always used varnish on the teak trim and rails on his fishing boats. Endured salt water and the rigors of serious fishing all season long. From my understanding, the oil won't wear as long as the varnish but both will need to be reapplied occasionally.

Make sure you do a test of the Sikkens on an inconspicuous spot. It can result in an orange colored cast that you might not be expecting.


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## 000 (Dec 9, 2015)

Very nice looking after refinishing, you got a keeper set there.
https://us.letgo.com/en/i/nauteak-maritime-heritage_c3ee5d20-5696-47fe-9c48-945cc95e8a56

Just oil every year, or as needed.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

I don't plan on using the Sikkens, that's just what was used on it last. I'm leaning toward the teak oil but I'll get into my finishing books an see what type of varnish might work. Honestly, when someone says "varnish" I never know what they are talking about. Some people use it as a general term for Poly some people mean it literally (which I think means a poly/oil blend but I'm probably wrong). I'm just not as familiar with it as I am with oil, poly, or laquer finishes.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

That is nice jbay! Hopefully I can make it look something like that when I'm done!


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## Unknowncraftsman (Jun 23, 2013)

I say leave it natural. Clean it real good till you get to new wood and let it age naturally. Oils and all that other junk just attracts dust and dirt.
And makes you fight a losing battle against Mother Nature


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> I say leave it natural. Clean it real good till you get to new wood and let it age naturally. Oils and all that other junk just attracts dust and dirt.
> And makes you fight a losing battle against Mother Nature
> 
> - Aj2


To add to Aj2 comment. Perhaps if you choose that route I'm thinking a pressure washer and a deck cleaning agent. I did than to a cedar deck one time and it really cleaned it up pretty good.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Teak oil is no different than "tung oil," Fromby's Tung Oil" and so on. All are just boiled linseed oil with a little resin and thinner.

If this puppy is going outside, it "may" need UV protection. That isn't part of the so called teak oil (they don't really squeeze or steam teak trees to get the oil out of them).

I'm a huge fan of non-hardening oils, since they stop the wood from shrinking, then splitting and cracking. Too, they don't require stripping, which is nice, since the items to which they are applied are, often, labor intensive, to keep them nice.

Using them means being aggressive early on in the game, but, once well into it, you can coast more and more. To get the oils in, you have to, of course, think them and apply them to all surfaces.

You can experiment. Consider looking into pine tar, boiled linseed oil and turpentine mixes, such as are applied to water craft, WWII guns and so on. They are easy to apply.


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## caboxmaker (May 3, 2017)

The table needs a good power wash before you do anything with it.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

Good advice Kelly. I was thinking Teak Oil was a non-hardening oil but that's why I wanted to ask this question. After reading your comment it got me thinking about Thompsons Water Seal, the original clear stuff, not the tinted version. What is Thompsons? Is that a non-hardening oil? If its good enough for decks its probably good enough for furniture.

As far as pressure washing, won't that be bad for the joints? The chairs for instance are put together mostly with pegged slip tennons and some of those joints are reinforced with long brass bolts. Then the table top has a lot of tongue and groove joints. Maybe a very low pressure wash is in order. I just cant imagine forcing water into these joints would be a good thing.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

Okay. Maybe there is something to this pressure washing idea. This could be a time saver!


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## Fthis (Feb 11, 2018)

Marine spar varnish.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

First, if you pressure wash, use the white tip, which is the one with a very wide spray. Anything else is for carving wood. As they say, don't ask me how I know (P.S. My pressure washer is 4000 PSI).

Over the years, I've heard a lot of complaints about Thompson's. That could be because people expect a magic bullet from a can. That is, it needs to be done every year.

Some have said Thompson's is emulsified wax. Dunno, but, if it is, I could see why it would not be the ideal finish.

As to oils, the first big job I did with non-hardening oil was my garage doors. I made them from leavings out of a spalt pile from a local cedar mill. People commented they didn't know I had a garage and just thought it was tightly stacked [cedar] cord wood.

The first coat of oil soaked in like it was going out of style. Wherever it soaked in, I added more and kept doing it until it wouldn't take more. In three months of what passes for summer on the northwest Washington coast, you couldn't tell I'd done anything.

The next year, I hit it hard with the oil again. This one lasted---three months again.

The third coat was the deal breaker, in this case. Years later, it's still obvious it was oiled. The thing is, the oil was not evaporating. It was just wicking deeper and deeper into the wood. As such, the coats were cumulative and built on each other. Of course, they were penetrating coats, rather than surface coats, like spar varnishes and other surface coats [that have to be stripped.

A qualifier on the spar varnish an other surface coats, you have to strip them only if you don't stay on top of them, or they otherwise crack or lift.

By the way, the reason fences and other wood surfaces look horrible in a year or three after they get a surface coat is, the finish wasn't flexible enough to shift with the wood, as it gained and lost moisture. That is why people use spar varnishes. They are what is called long oil fnishes. They have more oil so are more flexible.

My ideal exterior finish might be a piece which has been hit with oils until it's saturated, then sealed with a light seal coat using a long oil finish. Dunno, never been patient enough to go there.

I have taken exterior finishes and added hardening oil (tung and boiled linseed) oil to them and even added motor oil and thinner. Those seemed to work too.

I had a [non-Pasadena] little old lady who had me finish her fence. Rather than fire up the airless, I used a garden pump up, which works if the product is thinned around 15%. I explained the "aggressive early on" thing to her and she went for it. I was able to do her 100' fence in about an hour, using the pump up. She lived in one of the cookie cutter housing development (nice houses, postage stamp lots). Hers was the best looking fence around, and the easiest to maintain.

The oil replaced lost moisture, so the fence didn't shrink, so didn't suffer the usual cracks and splits. Too, the oil gave the wood (cedar) a nice golden glow.

I just used motor oil. Since there are greenies lurking, I won't say it was used, but which, even if pitch black, will still produce the golden color on sun stained wood. Of course, such oil would not be a good candidate for something you're going to be sitting on and rubbing against.

_
SIDE NOTE:

Many products say to only use so much. So do many otherwise expert painters. For example, one old boy thought I was stupid for thinning latex and letting it soak into my sixty year old shingles. He said it was wasting material. I asked him why, where did it go?

Keep in mind, these shingles where thin and dry. They were due for replacement. However, saturated with paint, then coated with more, they've gone another fifteen years and will go many more.

In short, the weather now has more finish between it and the old tar paper underneath the shingles and shakes.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

and I agree, in this instance, about the pressure washing and joints.

Good catch.

For future reference and on other projects, those of us who pressure washed for part of our living used sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) regularly. It helps get rid of the surface mold and so on. The pressure washer has to do less work and you can, in many cases, just use a regular hose and spray nozzle.

Some of the old Draino formulas used just caustic soda (of course, read lables).


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## CharlesA (Jun 24, 2013)

I just did the same, read up a lot, and here's my takeaway:

1) teak oil is a scam.
2) Best cleaner: SEMCO TEAK CLEANER
3) Best Sealer (if you wan to keep it from going gray: SEMCO TEAK SEALER GOLD

I am getting ready to use both products on my purchase. Ours is in a screened in porch, so that should help long-term.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

CharlesA, I've seen Semco recommended on a few different sites. Seems to be what most people are using. Here's what I'm leaning toward now.

1) Low Pressure Wash
2) Light sanding where needed 
3) Semco Teak Sealer

I don't really have a big problem with it going gray. Maybe I'll just do 1 & 2 and let nature do the rest.


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

Kelly, did you say you used motor oil to finish a fence?


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Yep, motor oil. The cheapest I could get (didn't care about mileage or friction reduction). Non-hardening oil is non-hardening oil. If mineral oil would have been cheap, I would have used it.

On mineral oil, I was going to look into the stuff they sell orchardist, since it only runs $3.00 a gallon, versus $10.00 or so for Chevron Shingle Oil.


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## Stumble (Mar 11, 2018)

Teak has a very hard winter rings and very soft summer rings. If you pressure wash it the water will blow the summer rings out requiring a huge amount of sanding to get it back to smooth. It can cause you to loose 1/8" or more of thickness where ever the water hits. It is a seriously destructive process on teak.

All you need to do is hit the table with a RO sander and some 80 grit to take off the remaining finish then sand it smooth. Then stop. Assuming the wood is real teak everything else is cosmetic, the wood holds enough oil that it will just weather to grey and be perfectly happy.

If you want to finish it, for any outdoor furniture I would recommend a marine varnish, Epifanes spar varnish is my favorite . It can realistically go a year between additional coats, wears hard, and is easy to reapply. It also has UV stabilizers that help keep it from breaking down in the sun. Typically for marine use we apply 7 coats, sanding in between coats, but that may be a little much for patio furniture.

The trick is so long as there is a good existing finish you can just reapply from year to year. If you ever let it all go then you have to start over.


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

I don't think I would want to use an oil that does not dry or polymerize on furniture. You'll wind up with oil on your clothes every time you sit on it. I also don't think I would want a spar varnish on it. It will eventually crack, moisture will get underneath and you will get mildew under the varnish, especially near joints, which sort of defeats the purpose. IMO, you would be better off with no finish at all than a varnish.

If you do decide to try the power wash, experiement with the underside first. You'll need to figure out the optimum distance to hold the nozzle to clean but not blast away the surface wood.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> I don t think I would want to use an oil that does not dry or polymerize on furniture. You ll wind up with oil on your clothes every time you sit on it. I also don t think I would want a spar varnish on it. It will eventually crack, moisture will get underneath and you will get mildew under the varnish, especially near joints, which sort of defeats the purpose. IMO, you would be better off with no finish at all than a varnish.
> 
> If you do decide to try the power wash, experiement with the underside first. You ll need to figure out the optimum distance to hold the nozzle to clean but not blast away the surface wood.
> 
> - Lazyman


12 inches and a few other tip in this article on power washing teak.

http://www.atlantateak.com/cleaning-teak-furniture-pressure-washing/


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

Another bunch of information about teak wood.

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/id/blog_posts/3-things-you-need-to-know-about-teak-furniture-34467


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

Thanks for the links! I borrowed a friends electric pressure washer which was 1600psi with the wide fan tip and it did a good job on the gray areas but it couldn't all of the old finish. I'm going to try a slightly stronger pressure wash to see what it can do.

I may end up needing to strip the finish then pressure wash but I'm hoping a gas pressure washer will do the trick.


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## Kloli (May 13, 2019)

Hello Stew81! I came across this site when trying to google a pair of used teak chaise lounge chairs I just purchased. Like you, I could not find much of anything on Nauteak Maritime Heritage. I wanted to see if they were indeed teak and glad to see they are thanks to you. Mine have weathered and need cleaning as well. Did you ever do anything different with your set and did you ever find more information on where they are made, etc.? I am curious. Thank you!

Kelly


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## Stew81 (Aug 29, 2014)

I didn't find any more info on the the company. I ended up using an electric (low psi) pressure washer to clean them and take off the marine finish that was still remaining then just put it outside and let it turn gray. I figured it wasn't worth the effort to try to keep it looking new. The natural gray color has grown on me.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Yes, and no.

I've used it many times. After I feel like it's wicked in as far as it's going to, and if there is any indication of surface oil, I just wash it off with Dawn.

IF, after you are done applying thinned coats of non-hardening oil, you want to seal against oozing, just add a bit of poly. Not much. Just enough to seal the surface, WITHOUT building a surface coat that will, as you pointed out, crack and separate.

Obviously, doing nothing to wood is a guarantee it will, eventually, become garbage. Even in the hot desert, where it may not rot quickly, but where it will dry and shrink, causing major splits and cracks (even in teak).

On the oil, find a piece of scrap, dry the hell out of it, until it does crack and split. Next, mix some motor oil (new or used) with about 25% thinner and slop it on. Every time it soaks it up, add more. Do this until it quits sucking it up (say, an hour between applications). Now, slop some lightly (say 10%) thinned oil on and walk away for a few weeks, then check on it and see how those splits and cracks are doing. Just as when you soak wood (or nature does in the Pacific Northwet winter), it will swell from the oil [replacing the lost moisture].



> I don t think I would want to use an oil that does not dry or polymerize on furniture. You ll wind up with oil on your clothes every time you sit on it. I also don t think I would want a spar varnish on it. It will eventually crack, moisture will get underneath and you will get mildew under the varnish, especially near joints, which sort of defeats the purpose. IMO, you would be better off with no finish at all than a varnish.
> 
> If you do decide to try the power wash, experiement with the underside first. You ll need to figure out the optimum distance to hold the nozzle to clean but not blast away the surface wood.
> 
> - Lazyman


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