How to recoat badly degraded exterior varnish on timber windows and doors?

[El_Barto]

Hi folks, 

I am prepping and eventually recoating a number of timber doors and windows on a property (for a friend). I imagine the best way to do this is to completely remove the original varnish, sanding back etc. then recoating (this is my current approach). However, I would like this job to be as cheap as possible for my friend and am wondering if an acceptable result could be achieved by sanding of the worst bits and giving the entire frames just a light sand before recoating. I’ve seen this sort of thing happening a lot particularly on cedar weatherboards so I’m wondering if anyone has any good tips! Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated, thank you

  

  

[Jewelleryrescue]

Hi @El_Barto 

Good  your looking after your  neighbour  .

To do a  good varnish  job  you would have to sand timber back to clean timber any part  cleaning would be seen  through the new varnish.  Those  timbers in photos  will need alot of  elbow grease to get them looking  nice.

I can  direct you to  a clear silkens outdoor varnish it is a  polymere   that is highly uv resistant and weather proof for many years.

Sikkens 1L Cetol TGL Gloss Plus Clear Timber Finish I/N: 1522546  about  $58 per litre  not  cheap but worth every drop.

Can I get you  to reconsider you  mind set? 

Why  not simply paint the timber with a  and exterior paint many are one coat coverage these days.

Also  this way a full sand  back  not  required to raw timber and if  later you need to  retouch any marks  you simply use the same  paint.

Start a  new color scheme or   just white it will hide all the marks and preserve the timber for many years to come. 

If you can get some  one with a business ABN they  can  join bunnings as a trade person and  access trade  qualitly paints  for a  very good  discount in the tuabuans range.

I dont think you are repainting the whole house so you will need to  think about solutions too.

Some times paint places and  bunnings have mis tinted  paints you can  buy cheaper. if you  are  just dong the out door trims etc. save a few  dollars.

hope this  helps.

[JacobZ]

Hi @El_Barto,

A warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community and thank you for your question.

It's fantastic to see @Jewelleryrescue has already jumped in with some advice.

Unfortunately, revarnishing these windows will require sanding them back to bare timber. This can be sped up by using an orbital sander for the majority of the surface area and then hand sanding for the curves and corners. Use 80-grit sandpaper and you'll be surprised how quickly it comes off.

Once it is back to bare timber, use painter's tape and plastic drop sheets to mask off the windows before coating the timber with an external varnish like Bondall Satin Monocel Gold Marine Clear Timber Varnish.

Alternatively, as Jewelleryrescue has mentioned, you can lightly sand the frame to remove the poorly adhered flaky varnish and then paint it with a high-quality external paint like Taubmans All Weather or Dulux Weathershield. Check out How To Paint Over Varnished Timber for some guidance.

Let me know what you think and if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Jacob

[El_Barto]

Thanks @JacobZ and @Jewelleryrescue . Appreciate that advice a lot. 

have been sanding everything back to bare wood as you suggested. My friend is pretty attached to the exposed wood look so we went with tongue oil (which is maybe even more expensive than some of your suggestions). But will be interesting to see how it fairs over time. I’ve heard it is an easy oil to recoat with? 

anyway thanks a lot for your help. A couple progress pics attached 

    

[EricL]

Hi @El_Barto 

Thank you so much for the photo updates. The timber frames look great, sanding back to wood has really brought out the timber grain.

Eric