Deck Stain

Hi, I'm Tim Carter from AskTheBuilder.com and I'm down here on my dock. I'm sorry about all the wind. It is April 30th, 2010. Let me tell you a little story. A year ago, we completely cleaned and stripped this dock. It was in horrible condition. It actually looked gray. It was a mess

and I was getting ready to put on a top quality nanotechnology clear wood sealer, wood preservative

And what happened is, look at this, come down here and look at this, look how gray this wood is now

But understand that a year ago, it looked like this. This is the color of it

It was just gorgeous, you know, right after we cleaned and we put the clear nanotechnology sealer on

Well, within a few months it started to kind of grow gray, and I thought I was seeing things

I couldn't believe it. Well, after nine months it was just horrible

So I called the manufacturer, talked to them about it, and they said they wanted to do

another test. So this time I'm going to do a really official test, and here's what I'm going to do

This dock is six feet wide. I've divided it into four equal sections, and the manufacturer sent me a colored product

the clear product again, and this one here is a clear product that's, you know, another

name brand sealer. And then, of course, at the end, I'm not going to do anything

This section of the wood is just going to leave it alone. We're not going to put a sealer on it, and it's going to be the control

That'll show you what would happen if you just left wood unprotected. And of course you can see this dock gets direct sunlight east of that direction so as soon as the sun comes up the sun on the dock know it get sun until probably 3 or 4 in the afternoon so it a really really good test

The instructions to show what we have to do. It says here that the wood's got to be clean, it's got to be dry, and I even sanded it with 60 grit paper to roughen it up

This is cedar, by the way, just so you know. And it says that you're supposed to put on two light coats separated by no more than 20 minutes

And in these kind of conditions, it's kind of windy. I'll be able to put that second coat on, oh, gosh, within a few minutes

And it says on the label it's very important that the product does not dry between coats

So we want to do everything correctly. I've even got three separate brushes so that we don't pollute or mix up the brushes

you know, in between the products. So here, let's go ahead and start it. Let's put down the sealer and see what happens. So it's real kind of watery, very easy to work with. You

can see this one's got a nice brown color. That's going to look really good. Yeah, it

goes in really well. Look at that. It soaks in really well. You can see it soaking in

All right. So there is the first coat. You can see how light I put it on. There's no

puddling, there's no excess on, you brush it in really well. Okay, we're going to let

that one sit while we start this one. Now this one, even though it looks like milk

like it's skim milk, it's actually going to dry clear, believe it or not. It's very milky

but it will dry clear, believe me. You'll see it right here

It will go on milky, but as it starts to dry, it goes clear

It's a very strange product. Same thing brush it in You don want to have any excess Like right here you can see some excess in the grooves What happens if you have excess sealer more is not better What will happen is if you have a lot of excess it can peel and that exactly what you don want to have happen on these deck sealers

Alright, that's number two. Here's a competitive brand. It's also clear. And this one goes on clear. Look at that. You know, interesting. It's not milky at all. You can see it's the same color as the wood

I'm going to stop right at that line because we want to have that as the control

So yeah, that one shows you exactly what's going to happen. It's kind of interesting. This right here should dry exactly like this very shortly. Alright

Okay, so that's basically it. I'm going to go ahead and wait just a few more minutes

let these things kind of soak in a little bit more, and I'm going to put on that second coat, and then we're going to see what's going to happen. And I'll tell you what we'll do

We'll go ahead and tape a second video a little bit later to show you that this second one

here has, in fact, dried clear. Oh, guess what? We're in the future! Tell me that isn't

First things first though, I've been getting a lot of comments on this video where everybody

wanted to know what are the names of the products, tell us. Well, I'm not going to do that right

now. I'll tell you when we film the second video at the conclusion of the test. So stop

leaving comments down there about you know hey Tim what are the products that you using Just stop wasting your time Don do that Oh and I sorry about the wind here It a little windy out here in the future Now let go down and look at the deck sealer products and I going to show you that one that was milky absolutely did dry clear

So look at this. We're going to go look at that right now. But first, look at this one. There is the sealer that was the brown color. It really looks gorgeous, dry

and of course here it is there is the one that was milking you can absolutely see that it has

dried clear but guess what look at the next one look at that color difference they were both

they're both sold as clear but I'll tell you right now they have completely different color

characteristics. Kind of fascinating. And of course, down here, there is the wood that

is just bare. No sealer, nothing. It'll be interesting to see how it looks at the conclusion

of the test. So that's it. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go back to the past

I'll see you there in just a few seconds. So this is a deck sealer, deck stain test

and it's going to be really fascinating to see how these things weather out through the

course of the summer and we'll tape other videos as the summer progresses so that you

can see exactly what they look like. I'm Tim Carter for AskTheBuilder.com

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