# Forum Home Renovation Decking  Preparing and finishing a new spotted gum deck

## BP888

G'day, three months ago we finished building our new deck in spotted gum. It's an uncovered deck which receives sunlight up until midday each day. We left the deck to weather for three months and it turned a dull, almost grey colour. We've just cleaned it with the Intergrain Reviva which has brought up the colour only slightly (still quite dull). We're now looking at using the Spa and Deck product as the sealer.  
My questions:
1). Should we be getting a better result from the Reviva product or does the colour lift come from the final finish
2). Re. Spa and Deck, is this a better product to use than an oil, particularly for an exposed deck. I'm assuming we'd probably still need to re coat the Spa and Deck once a year. 
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!  :Smilie:

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## geeseman

All decks go grey with age. Are you getting any fibres lifting with weathering?
I used cutek extreme for my spotted gum deck. You add a colour to it (seala brown for Spotted gum) which brings back the colour.

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## jimj

Welcome to the forum. Just last week I prepared a 50m2 brand new (1month old) spotted gum deck. All timber when exposed to air oxidizes & starts turning darker untin it gets enough UV from the sun then it will start going silver grey. Hence why a new deck half covered with a roof will be browner-yellow under the roof & go grey in the sun.
Some of the deck cleaners are oxalic acid(reviva)  PH1& some are actually an alkaline detergent (powerlift)pH 12. Totally opposite on the hemical spectrum. 
Oxalic acid has a slight brightening effect but only slight. 
On all brand new decks I still sand off with a hand held,knee pad ,orbital sander with 80 grit paper. This will instantly brighten the wood. I would dsay the 50m2 took me about 5 hours to sand. 
I actually took some photos of this very thing to post however being the complete computer gumby that I am I always struggle with getting the image onto this forum.
I have been coating with Flood Spa&Deck for 9 years with over 300 decks completed. I tend to use mainly jarrah. my website has quite a few photos on it. All jarrah spa& deck 
good luck 
jimj   www.restore-a-deck.com.au

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## Craigoss

I built a 30m2 uncovered spotted gum deck over a year ago now, I let it weather for roughly 6 months, it looked pretty disgusting after this time. Steps taken before coating: 
- Napsan clean - concentrated solution let sit for 15mins before high pressure rinse.
- Oxalic Acid clean, may need to do this multiple time for tough black stains, let sit for 15mins and rinse off
- Lightly sand deck - I got a floor sander in to give it a light sand
- Vacuum the deck and coat straight away 
Before and After

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## jimj

I know this comment will fly in the face of what all the literature says about the weathering-tanin leaching issue. However ,if I was to build a deck tommorrow as soon as it is finished and no other tradie is going to traffic it to complete any work. I would just sand it out at 80 grit & get it coated asap. 
This idea of weathering is just fraught with so many variables. A deck under roofline can hardly "weather" as it doesn't get any rain and very little sun. A deck totally exposed will get sun and perhjaps some or little rain. What it will get is a lot of dirt,bird s&*t, mixed with grease from the dogs bone & BBQ grease splatter,wine,beer,cordial and who knows what else.
I have yet to have one single deck leach tanin up through the coating. I guess I have just been lucky.
When I first began this decking restoration business I really did believe what all the literature said even though there was enormous contradiction& differences of opinion.
I guess my suggestions can be added to all of this opinion and taken on board any way one wants to. However after restoring over 300 + decks I am finding it pretty simple. Sand it,coat it ASAP & maintain it in a timely manner when it needs it not after it has turned to sh^&t 
AH! its been awhile since my last rant
PS for those that have ducked for cover,I have just spent the past several days punching the ^^&&%%$## nails & sanding. No need to say any more 
jimj :Biggrin:

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## Uncle Bob

> AH! its been awhile since my last rant
> PS for those that have ducked for cover,I have just spent the past several days punching the ^^&&%%$## nails & sanding. No need to say any more 
> jimj

  Sounds like you're entitled to be a bit cranky  :Biggrin:

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## BP888

Thanks for all the comments and replies, much appreciate. We haven't had any fibers lifting through the weathering process and the timber still seems in good condition (ie no swelling or cupping). We're going to test a patch tonight with the floods spa and deck and see how it comes up. And then hopefully seal the rest this weekend. We've used dome head nails so won't be sanding  :Redface: /  
Lots of lessons learnt in building our first deck! No doubt the next one will be better again!

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## shauck

> We're going to test a patch tonight with the floods spa and deck and see how it comes up.

  Make sure you do one board complete, without overlapping onto another board, otherwise you will see the overlapping marks when you do the rest. Unless you are going to sand the whole deck, including the test patch, before coating the whole deck.

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## METRIX

> I know this comment will fly in the face of what all the literature says about the weathering-tanin leaching issue. However ,if I was to build a deck tommorrow as soon as it is finished and no other tradie is going to traffic it to complete any work. I would just sand it out at 80 grit & get it coated asap. 
> This idea of weathering is just fraught with so many variables. A deck under roofline can hardly "weather" as it doesn't get any rain and very little sun. A deck totally exposed will get sun and perhjaps some or little rain. What it will get is a lot of dirt,bird s&*t, mixed with grease from the dogs bone & BBQ grease splatter,wine,beer,cordial and who knows what else.
> I have yet to have one single deck leach tanin up through the coating. I guess I have just been lucky.
> When I first began this decking restoration business I really did believe what all the literature said even though there was enormous contradiction& differences of opinion.
> I guess my suggestions can be added to all of this opinion and taken on board any way one wants to. However after restoring over 300 + decks I am finding it pretty simple. Sand it,coat it ASAP & maintain it in a timely manner when it needs it not after it has turned to sh^&t 
> AH! its been awhile since my last rant
> PS for those that have ducked for cover,I have just spent the past several days punching the ^^&&%%$## nails & sanding. No need to say any more 
> jimj

  I agree 100%, when we build a deck we usually also coat it for the owners (sometimes they want to do this step). 
You cannot expect a client to put up with an uncoated deck for a few months, then return to clean it up and oil it, as you said the amount of birdy dung and various spilt lunches etc will just ruin the wood in a very short period and take more effort to clean it back up. 
We do the same, build it, clean it coat it all within a few days of finishing it, haven't had any problems with coatings not adhering, or leaching through the coatings.
Had one client who wanted to coat it themself, after it was finished we cleaned up our mess and the deck looked Mickey mouse, we said to coat it ASAP (like tomorrow) they said yes of course. 
One week later (deck still uncoated) they had this big dumb horse dog which went out in the backyard dug some trenches then chewed the hose to bits and in the process kept pulling at the copper pipe for the hose (which was not screwed to the post), it broke the pipe which semi flooded the backyard and ended up filling the trenches it had dug, this turned everything into a quagmire. 
So horse dog decided it would be funny to go tromping and sliding all over the new uncoated deck while it was totally covered in clay and mud, and using its nails to scratch the new wood to bits (this was all going on while nobody was home). 
The sun came out and dried all the mud and clay which was scratched and wiped into the surface of the timber, the owners then tried to clean it off unsuccessfully, and just decided to oil it. 
Needless to say we turned up two weeks after finishing it for the final payment, and were shown a deck which looked like it was 10 years old, I could not believe it was the same deck. 
I can say if the deck was coated the next day as asked it would have survived the attack from horse dog, and would have been easily repaired.
I did specifically ask then to NOT tell anyone they knew who would see the deck who built the deck, as it looked so bad I was embarrassed to say we had built it. 
Moral of the story I would coat the deck ASAP, and keep horse dogs off it.

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## ringtail

Agree. Coat straight away. Get the apprentice to coat the bottoms of all the boards the day before they are cut to length and laid  :Tongue:  :Biggrin:

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## baileyboy

> Agree. Coat straight away. Get the apprentice to coat the bottoms of all the boards the day before they are cut to length and laid

  How about coating it with sump oil? 
I was thinking about that seriously. Our queenslander is old and thought that might help preserve the timber. Not just straight sump oil. I was thinking of mixing with linseed oil and kerosene (like a homemade decking oil). Told the missus and she thinks I'm crazy...

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## jimj

I would be on your missus's team of thinking!   :Biggrin:  
  jimj

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## ringtail

Sump oil is pretty nasty and carcinogenic. Just a mix of pale boiled linseed oil and pure gum turps is fine or any cheap timber preserving oil. No need for expensive stuff just something that will penetrate the timber and leave some solids behind when the solvent evaporates.

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## johnc

I could be sarcastic and add sump oil would be perfect if you want ugly blacks marks all over your internal floors every time you had guests over. Either that or any other form of machine oil is unsuitable for trafficable areas. Have used it on a fence with brown oxide added looked ok  but I would never use it again you got dirty when you brushed against it for quite some time after it was first coated.

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## baileyboy

> I could be sarcastic and add sump oil would be perfect if you want ugly blacks marks all over your internal floors every time you had guests over. Either that or any other form of machine oil is unsuitable for trafficable areas. Have used it on a fence with brown oxide added looked ok  but I would never use it again you got dirty when you brushed against it for quite some time after it was first coated.

  Sorry, I meant on the underside of the boards. Not the top. I'm crazy but not that crazy  :Smilie:

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## ringtail

> Sorry, I meant on the underside of the boards. Not the top. I'm crazy but not that crazy

  I knew what you were getting at :Biggrin:

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## baileyboy

No one goes old school anymore.  
Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

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## ringtail

> No one goes old school anymore.  
> Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

  Just me. :Tongue:

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## Nickzed24

> Welcome to the forum. Just last week I prepared a 50m2 brand new (1month old) spotted gum deck. All timber when exposed to air oxidizes & starts turning darker untin it gets enough UV from the sun then it will start going silver grey. Hence why a new deck half covered with a roof will be browner-yellow under the roof & go grey in the sun.
> Some of the deck cleaners are oxalic acid(reviva)  PH1& some are actually an alkaline detergent (powerlift)pH 12. Totally opposite on the hemical spectrum. 
> Oxalic acid has a slight brightening effect but only slight. 
> On all brand new decks I still sand off with a hand held,knee pad ,orbital sander with 80 grit paper. This will instantly brighten the wood. I would dsay the 50m2 took me about 5 hours to sand. 
> I actually took some photos of this very thing to post however being the complete computer gumby that I am I always struggle with getting the image onto this forum.
> I have been coating with Flood Spa&Deck for 9 years with over 300 decks completed. I tend to use mainly jarrah. my website has quite a few photos on it. All jarrah spa& deck 
> good luck 
> jimj   www.restore-a-deck.com.au

  Jimj,
Just to clarify something please.... 
With a brand new spotted gumdeck, you recommend to :Redface: 
1) Sand it ASAP with an 80 grit sand paper plus a orbital sander 
2) Then coat it ASAP with Flood Spa and Deck. 
My question.... 
Is it necessary, after the sanding (and prior to coating) to do the whole oxalic/napisan process ? or is the oxalic/napisan only needed if the deck has been left to age naturally? 
Thanks
Nick

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## Nickzed24

> Welcome to the forum. Just last week I prepared a 50m2 brand new (1month old) spotted gum deck. All timber when exposed to air oxidizes & starts turning darker untin it gets enough UV from the sun then it will start going silver grey. Hence why a new deck half covered with a roof will be browner-yellow under the roof & go grey in the sun.
> Some of the deck cleaners are oxalic acid(reviva)  PH1& some are actually an alkaline detergent (powerlift)pH 12. Totally opposite on the hemical spectrum. 
> Oxalic acid has a slight brightening effect but only slight. 
> On all brand new decks I still sand off with a hand held,knee pad ,orbital sander with 80 grit paper. This will instantly brighten the wood. I would dsay the 50m2 took me about 5 hours to sand. 
> I actually took some photos of this very thing to post however being the complete computer gumby that I am I always struggle with getting the image onto this forum.
> I have been coating with Flood Spa&Deck for 9 years with over 300 decks completed. I tend to use mainly jarrah. my website has quite a few photos on it. All jarrah spa& deck 
> good luck 
> jimj   www.restore-a-deck.com.au

  HI Jimj, 
I was wondering if you would mind clarifying something for me please? 
Regarding finishing a brand new spotted gum deck you recommend to :Redface: 
1) sand with 80 grit hand held orbital sander ASAP after finishing 
2) coat with Flood Spa and Deck Jarah. 
Between steps 1) and 2) (on a brand new deck), do you clean the deck with napisan and Oxalic acid? or do you just coat it straight after step 1)? 
Thanks
Nick

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## jimj

I just sand then remove all dust and coat. No chemicals are used or needed

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## Nickzed24

nice one Jimj - thank you very much.

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## jimj

> nice one Jimj - thank you very much.

  Good luck I am sure you will have a pleasing result.

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