I have a friend who’s fascinated with live edge. He wants to replace the ‘serving bar’ at his boat dock cabana. Obviously, the cabana is near water and exposed to the elements. However, it’s under roof and receives minimal, if any, direct sun.
He loves cherry; I was able to find some decent slabs and have prepped for the final installation if a few weeks. He wants to finish with an oil of some sort, but I am convinced that he’d be applying oil every month to protect the wood.
Is there an oil that would provide sufficient protection for fine wood like cherry in such an environment? I am thinking that he’s better off with polyurethane or possibly and epoxy finish.
I’ve tried to upload photos for a better explanation, but for the life of me I cannot create a jpeg or pdf that is under the 3MB file limit
Replies
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Cherry boules are wonderful; I have several in my home. They're lightly finished with a Danish oil, and not abused, and they stay just fine. But they're indoors, and they're not subject to the kinds of accidents that happen around bar counters.
The bare cherry grain is beautiful, and if it's truly well protected from the elements and gets very little direct sun, you could just leave it untreated. Once a year or so if it greys a little, give it a mild bleach wash to lighten it up and perhaps a light sanding with fine paper.
Unfinished, of course, it will likely get blotched from usage, especially if it's used as a bar - grease stains, spilled wine, etc. So to prevent that, if you decide to use a finish polyurethane would probably be OK if what you say about its exposure is true. In the off-season, consider a waterproof cover.
Spar varnish for boats would probably be best. My advice is to take your question to a boating forum.
Good call.
Epifanes seems to have won out in the torture test ..
Torture test for outdoor finishes: The end
Mother Nature: 1, outdoor finishes: 0.
By Mark Schofield May 18, 2011
In the June 2009 issue of Fine Woodworking magazine (#205), Tom Begnal wrote an article called “Torture Test for Outdoor Finishes” where he described how he prepared sample boards from five different types of wood (mahogany, pine, white oak, ipe and cedar) and finished them with five different kinds of clear, exterior finish. A set of boards were then sent to spend a year in the damp U.S. Northwest, another set baked in New Mexico, a third suffered in the heat and humidity of Louisiana, while the fourth set sat up on the roof of Fine Woodworking’s office.
The boards finished with Epifanes, a Dutch marine varnish, and those that were first treated with an epoxy sealer and then finished with Epifanes as shown by Sean Clarke in issue #178 “A Durable Exterior Finish” came through almost unscathed, a hardware store spar varnish had mixed results, while those boards finished with a water-based polyurethane and those finished with a penetrating oil finish did not survive their year-long test.
At the risk of hijacking this thread, I'll give you my thoughts on Epifanes. I speak as a long-time veteran of classic boat restoration and maintenance. Not as a professional, but over time I've accumulated the scars (I also recommended a more lightweight approach above).
Almost all marine spar varnishes come pre-thinned to a brushing consistency. You put it on right out of the can, if possible, although sometimes you may thin it out a bit, as little as possible depending on ambient conditions, in order to get it to brush out nicely and level itself.
Epifanes is different: in the can it's about as thick as a heavy motor oil, having none of the volatile thinning agents that others come with. You then have to thin it yourself with their thinning agent to a suitable consistency for application. How much you put in varies according to the ambient conditions of the day: the temperature, the humidity, the breeze, the time of day, the sunlight or the shade. You have to have used it a lot to learn how to get it right, and for that reason it's thought of according to boatyard workers and professional painters and varnishers as an expert's product. I've used it myself, of course, but I've never grown to like it. Over-thin it and you lose UV protection, under-thin it and it sags and droops and you can't keep a 'wet edge' with the brush. Still, it definitely gives you the best UV protection you can find. So there you are.
A warning though - once you start down the varnish line, however, you can never get off that train. We have a saying: 'There's no such thing as the last coat of varnish.' ;-)
And that's all I have to say.
Really interesting, thanks for sharing
6 months ago I made several restaurant tables out of ash that were meant to be used outdoor. They spent all this time exposed to rain and direct sunlight and survived perfectly to this date after a rainy summer. They were finished with 3 coats of rust-oleum spar varnish, nothing fancy . I use Epiphanes on the boat and the main difference is that it requires thinning for the first coats or after the content has been exposed to air for some period of time.
I would advise 3-coats epoxy and 5-coats of Epifanes (or a comparable product). The epoxy seals it from moisture. The varnish provides UV protection for the epoxy and wood. This will last you a while, but will still require varnishing every few years. And if you don't like the glossy finish, Epifanes also has a semi-matt that you would apply as your two final coats.
When I made my earlier reply back in October 2023, I was kind of leaning toward a low-key, low-intensity approach without all the high-tech stuff. This in spite of the fact that I've used untold gallons of epoxy in some forty years of classic boat restoration and maintenance. In a rural setting like mine, that simple approach would kind of match the gestalt of our little place out in the woods. And, so what if it would go a little grey.
BUT, for a patio table I made a couple years ago, I reversed course and pretty much did exactly what BoatMakingWorkshop recommends. It's a beautiful bubinga slab about seven feet long, live edge on both sides, and I put those three coats of West epoxy on it with a series of Epifanes varnish coats on top. I also made a waterproof cover with bungie cords on the four corners. In the fall I slap the cover on it, and in the spring I pop it back off. It'll stay in beautiful shape without revarnishing for years.
The one thing I would add to BoatMakingWorkshop's recommendation is to put the three coats of epoxy on both the TOP and the BOTTOM (no need to varnish the underside). Otherwise the wood will cup as the underside absorbs moisture.
I love how you chose to blend the rustic charm of your setting with more durable methods for your patio table. Using both epoxy and varnish on that beautiful bubinga slab must have really brought out its character. It’s smart to cover both sides with epoxy to prevent warping—moisture can be such a sneaky problem. And that waterproof cover with bungees sounds like a perfect solution for keeping it pristine through the seasons. How has the table held up so far https://restonroof.com/?
Thank you for those kind words, Roycasagrande. The table's now three years old, I believe, and it's holding up just fine with its original finish. We get a lot of weather in the wintertime - rain, snow and ice - up here in the upper-left corner (Port Townsend, WA), and the cover stays on for months. Temps are only now beginning to inch up into the 50's. Here's a picture of the patio and the table, taken this morning.
Thanks for sharing the photo and update—it must be great to see such a well-crafted piece enduring through the seasons.
Or if one uses oil, go for Cetol.
A clear oil will offer little to none in UV protection. A pigmented oil however will offer some protection and the more pigment you use the more protection you will get. This of course will change your cherry to something else. A linseed based oil will tend to go black. An exterior oil such as penofin or twp is designed for exterior use but I have my doubts that it would be food grade for a serving bar.
Spar varnish with or without epoxy underneath as others have recommended would be my first choice. Epiphanes is an excellent product and I've used it a lot partly because it's easily available but I like Tonkinois equally, though a bit harder to find. The difference being that Tonkinois ,which is recommended to not thin and I don't, builds faster and I can in about 6 coats achieve a result similar to 10 coats of Epiphanes. Ive had really poor results with hardware store varishes such as Helmsman or Man o War. Varnishing is not for the faint of heart. 24 hours dry time between coats ,sanding between -its a multi-day project --protecting it from dust and that little bastard fly that somehow manages to crash land right in the middle of every project. A varnish job well done is a beautiful thing though!
The traveling varnish test: was Tonkinois included in that test?
Total Boat.
Well fellas, thanks for all the comments. We did move forward and use the Epiphanes last fall. We put two coats on the underside and four on the top. I’m heading up to my friends’s lake house next month to see how it survived the winter. Really appreciate all this expert advice. I’ll post a photo upon my return.
Spam revival
There is a company named Sikkens, which is mostly known for its car finishes. However, they do (or at least did) make a great exterior finish contianing all the UV protection and a heavy concentration of linseed oil. It's a great finish. However, my only comment on exterior finishes like this is that the weather always wins. If the top won't be exposed to sun and it's under cover, the finish will last at least a couple of years, maybe longer. Eventually it will need to be refinished which will most likely involve at least some light sanding and at least one coat of finish. My experience with this product was front door which is under cover and doesn't get much sun since it's on the north side of the house. However, it got enough exposure to weather, especially winter weather, that I ended up refinishing every year to avoid a significant amount of surface prep each time. There is no known finish impervious to weather. I didn't see where this person lives but, if it's the midwest or east coast, the weather will definitely govern how often it needs refinishing.