How to clean new Merbau decking boards?

[albyeo]

I have put in a new merbau decking and with the rain had stained my decking wood. What do I use to clean it off to original color. 

 

 

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @albyeo. It's terrific to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about restoring decking.

You'll likely have to strip both the new and old timber regardless of the staining. This stripping process will remove the staining from the old timber, the leeching tannins from the new, and achieve some colour consistency across the whole deck. You can use Cabot's 2L New Timber Prep on all the timber. I'd give the old timber two-three scrubs down with it and two for the new. You can then apply two coats of your choice of Merbau oil to the entire deck. The new deck portion might require three coats to make it slightly darker to match the old timber.

The staining on the old timber is likely tannins that are leeching out of the new timber, and you've walked them over the old timber. The new timber prep will be effective at removing the staining, but you will need to re-oil as well.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

[MitchellMc]

How are you going with your project @albyeo? I trust my assistance was helpful, but please do let us know if you have further questions. 

We'd also love to see some images of your completed project if you like to share them with us.

Mitchell

[albyeo]

Sorry I didn't know how to access your message earlier. It's all good that I have read your reply. Thank you so much for your reply. Just a little more elaboration for my deck. The dirty timber you seen is in fact new timber. The whole deck is built with new timber but had rain over it half way thru when building. Continued with my deck after rain and wiped the timber dry after rain and it seems to help. But the first part of timber looks like the rain had soaked the tannin into it.

I had bought the cabots timber prep and deck clean as well but had not tried on yet cos of the rain. Will do it today if the weather is good.  Hope I hear from you soon. Once again thank you so much for your help. 

[Jason]

Glad you have now seen Mitch's reply @albyeo.

Please let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the Workshop site. We're here to help. You can find all your previous posts on your profile page or by clicking the My Posts link via the drop-down menu that's next to your username at the top right corner of any Workshop page.

You might find the guide How to stain and protect decking timber by @Adam_W is really helpful. It explains why you should let your new decking boards age naturally for up to three months before staining. 

Jason