Hand rail refinishing / finish repair question

[Boatsb]

Don't trust the online resellers. Their less than informed. You need to get the right information from the right people. I'd bet the expurt at dimfender never actually used the product.

Awlwood has multiple primers that have pigment. I believe a red and a yellow if memory serves.

It's a process and must be done by the process. Don't listen to people who know the hacks as they don't seem to work out.

I've also used clear UV stable imron and awlgrip over the years for certain applications and each one has its good and bad.

 

[cww]

Thanks all for the replies.I guess I should ponder this a little more. I'll be sanding down to bare wood but given my druthers I would prefer the rails come out closer to say dark caramel vs light caramel color. Sounds like the only way to achieve that may be with a pigmented varnish. I'll have to search around and look for a picture of what the Alwood clear w /clear primer looks like when completed.

If you want the traditional spar varnish look with the awl grip product then you have to stain the wood first and put the alwood down over it. It’s basically just a clear resin and doesn’t darken when it cures like varnish does. My neighbor swears by it and says it’s more work to apply but lasts longer, claims he gets 2-3 years in Florida vs. 1-2 years for varnish. Personally I think that’s optimistic, I would swear I saw him messing with it a year ago, but the older I get the more time flies so I could be wrong. His looks good. But you can still tell it’s not varnish. It’s clearer and lighter colored even with the stain under it than varnished teak is. Doesn’t have that traditional dark brown look. It’s not as bad as rails done with Cetol, though. You can always spot that light orangey color a mile away.

 

[ian w]

Perfection plus two part varnish works well in Florida
Two maintenance coats once a year and it stays good

 

[UNIQUE_NAME]

Is the ALWOOD gloss( DOI) as good as varnish ?

in ny and i put alwood on 4 years ago.
i ended up with white dots in the finish.
i seem to remember seeing them appear after the first season.
im guessing it is moisture in the wood but its just a guess.

disappointed because aside from that it wears very well up here.

 

[Scarlett]

As to color, Alwood does make a primer that has some color in it. I have never seen it before y it is available.

 

[IOLANI]

Thanks to all for the input . I had sorta made up my mind I was going with Allwood … now I think my head is going to explode from reading and overthinking it. Definitely don’t want the orange tint look. Allwood does offer a yellow or red tinted primer but then I’d need a piece of identical teak to test on which I don’t really have. I guess I’ll wait till I have it sanded down and see how the wood looks before I make my final decision.

 

[firbanks]

Not sure if it's recommended or not, but I have dock neighbors and others that lay down a couple coats of Awlbrite on top of multiple coats of their favorite varnish. It's a 3-part system which is probably inconvenient but...just wanted to make a hard decision harder.

 

[jmooney]

I used 10 coats of awlbrite over tens coats of varnish (awlspar) , looks great , although 4 coats of varnish would have been enough. This is after 4 years in Miami.

 

[IOLANI]

Here's an interesting article showing some varnish results after 2 years of weathering vs protected. The top quarter of each panel was protected from the elements (where you see the tape line).

https://www.practical-sailor.com/bo...ojects/exterior-wood-finish-update-at-2-years

I've got my rails sanded now and I'm still trying to decide between the Awlwood clear primer vs yellow vs red primer .

 

[IOLANI]

Ok so I'm finally at the point of applying the Alwood primer and finish. Due to the Hatt's Imron paint I shied away from using any chemical stripper and did all the old varnish removal with hand scraping and sanding.

If you look close you can see fine white lines or streaks down in the grain of the rails. I'm sure I could keep sanding until they're out but I'm happy with the fact that up until this point I have not had to remove any appreciable material from the wood. Did I come all this way only to have to use chemical after all to get that out ?
I'm wondering if it will be visible at all once refinished only because when I wet the rails with water the white streaks vanish...or is it "what you see is what you get ?"