How To Prepare Grey Teak Outdoor Furniture Before Staining or Oiling
Preparation is key to a good outcome of your staining or oiling project of teak outdoor furniture. The more thorough you are with the cleaning, scrubbing and sanding before starting, the better the furniture will look after your staining / oiling. If your furniture has been outside for over a year and has turned silver grey weathered teak colour, then you will need to do a lot more work. In this blogpost we will focus on that process.
Preparation is key
Make sure you have all the necessary gear before you start. You will need a connected garden hose, a bucket with warm soapy water alternatively a teak cleaner (Golden Care Teak Cleaner or possibly Sikkens Teak Cleaner. It’s environmentally friendly to use soapy water and also Golden Care products. Sikkens is effective but not so good for the environment.) At Sydney Staining Services we use Golden Care Teak Cleaner. Furthermore you need good gloves, protective glasses and possibly waterproof boots. A soft bristle brush, a bigger kitchen brush and a lot of patience. You also need to be prepared to work hard, it’s not easy to clean teak. It’s very easy if you use the high pressure hose but we discommend using the high pressure hose. You would only ever do that as a last resort. Downside being that you can damage the teak and also rinse the teaks natural oil out.
Get amongst it
Once you have all your gear, you start by giving the teak outdoor furniture a proper soak with the garden hose. Keep on hosing for at least 5 minutes to ensure that its not only the top that’s wet but the teak has absorbed water.
Then you scrub the teak with your prefered weapon, always scrub along the grain, never ever scrub or sand cross grain.
If you are using a teak cleaner and brightener follow the instructions on the label, they all vary.
Make sure that you get to all areas of your teak because you stain, oil or teak protector that you soon will apply wont bite on grey teak. (Oxidation from the sun)
Now let the furniture dry and you will get a receipt on how good work you have done. If you missed a few spots you can sand them out with a 120-240 grit sandpaper.
If you really stuffed it up, call us, and we will come to the rescue
To bypass the headache of this exercise and to do something nice on the weekend, click on Get Quote to get a no obligation quote.
Par Arnoldson, the founder of Fornya, is a Teak Maintenance Specialist based in Sydney, Australia.