Another paint question - staining fence

[jharkin]

Ok OHW'ers....

Whats our preferred method to stain fence?


We just had our old decaying falling over fence replaced with a nice brand new cedar fence. We plan to stain it white. Fence guys say to let it weather for a year before staining, but elsewhere I have heard its ok, and sometimes heard better to do it when the wood is fresh. The fence is entirely cedar, posts and all so no wet PT to deal with.

I will be using BM alkyd solid siding stain.

Last year I put in a brand new cedar lamp pole and I stained it new. The BM instructions suggested to avoid tannin bleed through on non weathered wood to prime first with oil then stain so that's what I did - 2 coats of alkyd exterior primer and then 2 coats of white stain. Worked fine and seems to be wearing well. The only thing I didn't like was that you cant get oil based stain in quarts, only latex and this latex "stain" was as thick as paint and didn't seem to penetrate at all. (For the fence I'll buy in gallons to get the real alkyd oil based stain).

So whats the verdict?

- Do I stain this summer, or wait a year?
- Do I just stain with no pre treatment?
- Do I prime then stain?
- Do I do the 3 step - blopturp / primter / stain?



Since y'all love pictures so much

[pqtex]

I don't know the answers to your questions, but that sure is a pretty fence!

My mother has a cedar fence...no paint, no stain. She likes the soft weathering of the wood. Her current fence is about 5 years old. The previous fence lasted almost 40 years, also cedar, also not stained or painted. When she replaced it, we saved the old boards to build a fence at my brother's camp house because they were still in usable shape.

[jharkin]

Thanks for the compliments.

Our plan from the beginning was to have the fence white. We chose cedar to avoid plastic and chemically treated products. I did more reading today and found some nice finishing guides on the Western Red Cedar trade association website. I guess I should not be surprised that their recommendations are contrary to what all the local "expert" contractors say. They recommend to finish it before it weathers and to use latex paint (not stain) with a primer. Solid stain was given as a less durable alternative to paint but again latex preferred, not oil.

hmmm.

http://www.wrcla.org/pdf/Finishing_WRC_ ... Stains.pdf

[PowerMuffin]

Well that is interesting. I use a solid stain (oil) on our cedar deck and fences. I primed the deck floor first and in one year it is a mess-peeling up. I wonder if latex floor paint would have worked better, or no primer so the stain could sink in... We recently added a new section of fencing and I was waiting until next year to paint it. I just love the color of brand new cedar and hate to cover it up, but I am not a fan of the weathered look of it.
Diane

[Sashguy]

Not sure about cedar, but treated lumber is typically 3 months wait.

[cs]

Nice fence!

We did a Walpole cedar fence, and I know if you order it stained, it comes that way, so they clearly are not waiting a year to do it.

That said, we went with unstained. - it mellows to a soft grey, doesn't need to be restained, and lasts just as long (what fails first is the below-ground wood, so staining after the fact won't add to the lifespan of your fence).

Here's a couple of photos in which the fence appears (dog and kid sold separately) :




Chris
http://www.saracenihouse.com

[jharkin]

Yes, so far everything Ive read on both the Cedar lumber association, and Ben Moores own website says its better to paint before it weathers. CS - that's how our old fence rotted as well - at the base of the posts.

I'm going to just go ahead and paint it like I did my lamp post - one coat of oil primer as a stain block and two coats of white latex siding stain. Sounds like the latex topcoat will last longer.

I have touch up work to do on the house while I'm at it, for that I'll use oil siding stain since that's whats on there already....

[pqtex]

Would it be good to use the pre-treatment of boiled linseed oil/turpentine before priming? Seems like that would act like a preservative.

[jharkin]

I was wondering if the pretreatment was worth it as well - but since this is new wood maybe its not so critical as per my searching. I did get the Moorewhite 100 slow dry penetrating oil primer which seems to be the best for sealing the cedar.

As far as the stains go, I found out down at the paint store that the latex solid stain is the only option now. They no longer sell oil siding stain here in MA....store cant even order it, and the couple cans of old stock they had left were not the right base for the colors I needed. So on my siding touch up project I have no choice but to switch from oil to latex. On the plus side I did a test and the color match is near perfect, but to be safe rather than spot touch I will just repaint the entire walls that are bad after I scrape sand and re-prime (oil) the bad spots. More work