Problem with white oak garden benches
user-2106022
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I recently completed a project making several garden benches. I used kiln dried white oak. After sitting out in the spring/early summer weather for just a few weeks, a number of splits and end checks have appeared. The wood was primed with a latex primer and top coated with a high quality latex enamel. All end grains were painted. I have 8-10 more to make and am wondering it white oak is not the correct wood to use if it is to be painted. Anyone have any suggestions as to why the splitting/checking is occuring and what I can do to prevent in the future?
Thanks,
Shaver
Replies
I'll be watching the responses to this carefully! White oak is supposed to be an excellent wood for outdoor use. I'll ask one question to get started with: Do you know what the moisture content was when you started working the wood?
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Thanks for yoyr interest. The moisture content was between 5 and 8% using a wagner moisture meter. I selected the white oak after considerable research as this was for a large commercial customer with a significant opportunity for more business. I was replacing existing benches that had been plagued by carpenter bees and rot. I needed something very durable. Now I am very concerned about the material used.
Shaver,
Yes, White Oak is an excellent choice for outdoor furniture. Adirondack Chairs are "traditionally" made of White Oak and painted white.
Jamie posed a relevant question. My suspicion is that the wood was not properly seasoned in the kiln, this is becoming more and more of a problem. I gave up using kiln dried stock several years ago.
The latex based paint could also be a source of the problem or at least part of it. I prefer using oil based paints, they seem to penetrate and preserve the wood better while still allowing it to "breathe". FWIW.
Dano
I don't think I'd choose to use kiln dried white oak for exterior products over an air dried example, especially if you buy it at a measurable 6%- 8% and don't leave it around to gain some moisture prior to building. Climate of course varies a lot from one part of the world to another and an outside bench in Arizona experiences different weather conditions and humidity to the same bench the UK, or the US Pacific Northwest for example. Perhaps some kiln dried stuff would be the best choice for Arizona-- I don't know because I've never had to build something for those conditions. In the UK I'd almost certainly go for air dried stuff, which seldom gets below about 11% or 12% moisture content (MC.)
In a past life as a child growing up on a farm in the UK, my father commissioned the local, adaptable, village joiner to make English oak (a form of white oak) farm and garden gates from time to time. As I recall some of the timber was quite moist to the touch at construction time, and it was air dried stuff too, probably measuring out at 12%-- 17%, not that I ever remember the joiner using a moisture meter. Some of those gates are still there doing their job, albeit they're now suffering from twisted rails, twisted posts and stiles, etc, huge splits in the grain, semi-rotted mortice and tenons and covered in green algae, with rusty curtains hanging down from all the cast iron hardware. I don't think they've ever received a coat of anything in maybe 35- 40 years except some linseed oil sloshed on at installation to 'pretty them up a bit for the Gaffer' as the joiner once said to me.
I guess I'm not giving you a solution to your splitting problem, but I can testify that the white oaks are durable in those sorts of exterior conditions, i.e., the UK, even it isn't pretty any more, ha, ha. Slainte, RJ.
Several factors might be the cause of the splitting/checking.
The first and primary reason is likely poorly dried wood. Surface checking of green white oak is very likely to occur unless special care is taken to prevent it. Usually this is not the case. As lumber dries, it dries from the outside in. Since shrinkage is a reality, the outside shell shrinks while the core remains wet. Accompanying the outside layer shrinkage in the oak, surface checks generally develop. With completion of the drying cycle, and with appropriate equalization and conditioning, the checks will close and there will redevelop a level of crosslinking (chemical bonding in the ligno-cellulosic mattrix). In most interior/controled RH conditions, the original checking will not be a problem. It is likely that in your siting of these benches, the wood was rewetted, adsorbed water and reconditioned itself in an uncontrolled manner.
The second issue is grain orientation. I would guess that you probably used flat sawn boards. Checking in oak lumber usually is associated with the medullary rays which in flat sawn boards are generally perpendicular to the face of the board +/- 30 or so degrees. Not only is flat sawn lumber more dimensionally unstable (having a shrinkage/expansion coefficient about twice that of quartersawn material) there are lots and lots of the exposed edges of the ray planes. I would recommend using Qsawn material rather than flat sawn stock.
I hope that you used all heart material and did not include any sapwood. Sapwood in white oak is considerably more porous than the heartwood (where the vessel elements are occluded with tyloses). The heartwood of white oal is decay resistant but the sapwood contains insufficient amounts of the heartwood extractives and is therefore very susceptible to decay.
Penetration of any liquids into wood (based on surface treatments excluding end grain) is extremely slight. It is entirely dependent on the size of the molecules (indicated by molecular weight). For a non-porous wood like white oak (selected for this property for use in tight cooperage of whiskey and wine barres), I doubt if any paint would penetrate into the ligno-cellulosic mattrix more than a few ten-thousandths of an inch. Paint additives, pigments, acrylic polymers (latex) or alkyd resins (varnish/enamals) and linseed oil vehicle (enamel) are generally huge molecules in comparision to water (MW 18).
Research from the Forest Products Lab (USDA - Madison WI) indicates that the Moisture Excluding Effectiveness of enamels (especially alkyds) is generally greater (and therein less porous) than that of latex (acrylics). This is manifested by the fact that latex paints are less likely than oil-based paints to blister on exterior home applications.
As a finish I would recommend that you use something like the FPL finish (a combination of mineral spirits, linseed oil, parrafin, zinc stearate, and appropriate pigments with the addition of a wood preservative (eg copper napthanate) to protect the wood. The finish is more porous to vaporous moisture (a good thing) but the parrafin additive serves to retard liquid water absorption. I have not seen this combination in commercially available products.
I had a similar experience once with exterior furniture and what I found out was that KD white oak at 8% MC would return right back to around 12% MC as soon as you stick it outside. In the future (the circumstances haven't repeated themselves again yet) I would allow the White Oak to acclimate itself to the environment it would be living in before using it.
All the other explanations I've just read here seem plausible and probable too so I think all this advice here is worth considering.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go
instead where there is no path and
leave a trail."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have had very good luck with air-dried white oak, Gorilla glue, and Penofin.
I have an old barn made in the 1920's with siding made of green White Oak. After planeing off about 1/16" of the surface, it is hard as nails and finishes beautifully. The barn was never painted.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy
PlaneWood
You stated that you used a Latex primer and a topcoat of latex enamel. Latex primers are normally water based and if your primer was a "soap and water cleanup" there is the root of the problem. You should be using an oil based primer and an exterior oil based paint. If the primer is actually a water based primer then the oak "soaked up" the moisture instead of being sealed against the moisture. For several years now I have been doing outside projects with a n oil based primer and then using Sears Weather Beater Exterior paintswith polyurethane. At $22/gallon it really does the job.
"If the primer is actually a water based primer then the oak "soaked up" the moisture instead of being sealed against the moisture."
Gimme a break -- that is about as illogical and absurd a statement as I have ever heard !!!!
A board foot of white oak weighs 3.8 pounds @6% MC. A gallon of latex primer is about 50% solids and will cover approximately 250 square feet. Assume for sake of argument that coating all sides, a gallon will cover approximately 100 board feet weighing 380 pounds (3.8 x 100). Since a pint is a pound the world around, and there are 4 pints in a half gallon, then you will at the most be adding 4 pounds of water to 380 pounds of wood assuming that all of it is adsorbed by the wood and there is absolutely no evaporation. Were this the case, the moisture content of the wood would increase 1% [(4/380) x 100] = 1.05%. I think it more realistic that at least half of the water would evaporate from the surface of the coating so if this were the case, the wood moisture content would incease 0.5%.
It will be good to be gone all weekend so I don't have to listen to the angry and hostile statements that are likely to follow and be directed at me!
Stanley, something for you to come back to and puzzle over after your weekend on the sauce. You said. "Since a pint is a pound the world around," I'd just like to know if that's the American Queen Anne(sp?) pint, or the British Imperial pint, which contains 20 oz. per pint, which is ~4.45 litres to the Imperial gallon, or the 16 oz., per American pint coming to ~3.85 litres to the American Queen Anne(sp? again) gallon? Does that explain why the American ton is such an odd measure, not being being 20 hundredweight (cwt) , i.e., 120 lbs, therefore 2,400 lbs equals an Imperial ton, or is this all pure semantics. And where does a gill (pronounced jill) fit in as I'm especially fond of a nip of whisky, which comes in quarter gills in any half decent bars in Scotland, but a cheapskate publican serves it up in 1/5'ths of a gill, and those sad barstewards in England get a mere 1/6 of a gill per nip.
Curious minds don't need to know, ha, ha. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
Hey Sgian, so as to not dissapoint Stanley, I had doubled back to visit the same point but I see that you have done so with far more erudition than I could bring to bear. But some clarification, please. What is a gill. An inquiring thirst needs to know. Metric, if you will, so we don't continue the imperial missunderstanding.
'nuther thing. American Queen Anne? Didn't remember that we had one, Americans preferring to enjoy royalty at an ocean's distance.
Barman, a quarter gill of something dark, peaty, and single malted for the Scotts gent, if you please.
Cheers
BJ Gardening, cooking and woodworking in Southern Maryland
A gill is a quarter of a pint--Imperial, so a 1/4 of a gill is a 1/4 of a pint quartered, which turns out to be a nip of whisky. I'll let you guys good at fractions work it out, but it might be 1/16 of a pint. Not much if you spill all of it on the floor anyway.
As I recall it, you cussed Yanks didn't want to go along with the international treaty of 1824, I think that was the year, ratified by the British government which standardised weights and measures in Imperial units throughout the whole civilised world. Of course, we were able to colour the map red then and could dictate to the whole world what was acceptable, except for a wee colony on the other side of the pond that had been involved in a spat or two with us, the world rulers. Said colony wasn't interested in cowtowing to the diktats of the dominant world power at the time and preferred the system they were used to, thank you very much, and here's a stiff finger up your jacksy. Those pesky recent ex-colonials preferred the measurements as ratified by a certain Queen Ann, that oddly enough used to be an English Queen. Yes, I did say Queen, not quee....--- oh never mind. And there's no way I'm converting this into metric, at this time of day, very early on Saturday morning. I've had a beer or three, and neither of my surviving brain cells is talking to the other. Slainte, RJ.
RJFurniture
Edited 6/8/2002 3:17:30 AM ET by Sgian Dubh
Sgian:
Us Yanks started out as being extremely independently minded. As such we generally want nothing to do with anything that smacks of being Imperial. Somewhere along the way we became revolting and are continuing that trend so that we will eventually become the most revolting people that ever inhabited the earth. Plenty of my foreign born friends and acquaintances certainly consider us very ugly (as in the Ugly American) and I personally feel that at least 25% of the US population is definitely revolting (which expresses my attitude regarding obesity and corresponds exactly with the percentage of the population that is obese). Add the group that is into conspicuous consumption and those others who find television interesting and informative (not me as I am in that shrinking 2% that actually does not own one) and I would have to guess that almost the entire population can thus be classified as revolting.
I favor a certain aspect of Jeffersonian political philosophy -- that part where he suggested we should have a revolution every twenty years ( I suppose to clean house). Needless to say, since we have somehow lost that concept, we are into some downward spiral where we continue to elect dumber and dumber officials. I wonder if our ultimate goal is to somehow produce a politician with no morals, no ethics and no brains! Then again, we may have already attained that.
The only thing truly imperial about Americans (I always wonder how we came to refer to citizens of the USA as Americans because Cubans, Argentines and even Canadians should also qualify to use that notation) is our corporate imperialism. As near as I can tell, this is a system where we provide them colored, sugary fizzy water and then take all their natural resources and provide them jobs producing products they will never be able to afford. To help them live better lives, we send their governmental officials guns and tanks and bombs to insure that production quotes will be maintained. We also help them progress by establishing in their countries McDonald's franchises so that they too can eat insipid, unhealthy food and become malnurished and obese as our society is! That and the fact that we will sell them TV's so that they also can watch reruns of MASH, I Love Lucy and can see first-hand the effectiveness of our law enforcement officiers (as personified by Don Knotts in the ancient Andy Griffith Show). With this as an example of our generous cultural exchange program, it is real wonder that there are not more lunatic bombers out to destroy us. Maybe they feel they are helping us by putting us out of our apparent misery!
I have never heard of a Queen Anne pint, however she spells her name. In fact the only thing I know for certain about Queen Anne is that she must have had the most deformed legs of any person on earth such that they became a model for certain styles of furniture. but then again who knows what deformities are passed amongst the genes of royalty. Shakespeare tell us that Richard II was no beauty and the current English Queen has got some real problems -- something must be wrong with her poor head for all the strange and deformed hats she is forced to wear and she seemingly has this strange thing growing off her left arm that again has to be put in those god awful purses she has to carry around. Other than Queen Anne's legs, the only thing I know about Annie is that she was into white lace.
For all my conversion charts and tables I never did locate the actual weight of a gallon of water. As such, I relied on a saying a dairyman once told me about the weight of a pint of milk. I'm not really sure about that either since I have been weaned for decades now. Somehow, in all the trivial facts somehow retained in my mad brain, the one I cited always comes back.
I know very little about gills too; other than the fact that occasionally I get soaked to them. Being amongst uncivilized and revolting Yanks, I am uncertain as to how the term should be properly pronounced. Gills (with a hard G) are part of fishes and Jills are females with clumsy boyfriends named Jack (formerly of royality for somehow breaking his crown), and who (Jill that is) does gymnastics or is maybe a circus performer. I knew a Jill who I dated in high school who couldn't find a jack (but then again maybe she did as I am definitely not a Jenny).
And maybe somebody should inform me where the term Yank came from before I get myself in real trouble.
"And maybe somebody should inform me where the term Yank came from before I get myself in real trouble."
Oh you're definitely in trouble Stanley. That was one of the funniest posts I've read in a long time. but I think I can answer your question. Yank comes from the native american (injun) pronunciation of the word English. Oh, by the way, 'er indoors, the nagging queen is a good chunk injun, Cherokee, or so she says. Looks it too. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
I built some solid 16" x 16" x 18" cedar bench seats using a poly glue by laminating a huge amount of 8/4 cedar together. The grain ran up and down so the end grain was the seat. Then I used a black stain and then two coates of someting solvent based and clear. Then a week or two later delivered them.
Whoe nelly did they crack. Customer complained horribly. My response was, "Well, you designed it and told me where you wanted it. I can't do anthing about the fact we delivered them on a 80+ degree day, set them in the sun, and your automatic sprinklers watered them down every four hours. Since you wanted a dished seat, the water puddles up on the end grain and "boils" away in the direct sun day in and day out. Remember how you wanted them black? You basically ordered a heat sink. Sorry, but you are SOL and please remember I told you, NO GAURANTEES!!!"
Wow Stanley! Now that was a REAL BIG MAC mouthfull that you spat.I hope there's nothing left in there, stuck in your craw. I hope you got it all out, but somehow I doubt that you have.
Usually, before getting too high on my soapbox, I try to remember a simple phrase that an old friend of mine was fond of saying, "You don't know how you look 'til you get your picture took". Simple, but true. How easy it is to see others and yet how difficult to see ourselves as we are.Cheers, wb
WBWood1:
I am a bit uncertain about several things in your post -- the first is a Big Mac Mouthful. I would guess that I have not eaten at a MacDonald's for at least 10 to 12 years and don't remember ever having a Big Mac. My reasons are complex but certainly involve economics, my political views and a big dose of environmentalism. I also have certain health concerns but in general I find their "cooking" pretty disgusting.
I am also unsure of the mouthful you are referring to in this thread --6517.5; 6717.11 or the last one. I generally have a lot to say about wood and wood technology more or less because I have dedicated more than 30 years to its study and the trade of woodworking. You are going to have to be more specific.
I will admit that my wit and humor can be at times a bit sardonic, but that is also part of who I am. If you really want to hear a rant from me, bring up issues like some current practices of wood utilization, modern forestry practices/environmentalism or minority rights. Sgian incurred some of my wrath on the latter issue when he said something I thought was improper relative to Hispanics in his area. I assume that all this falls within the purview of my First Amendment rights. I try hard not to excessively and specifically ridicule or offend anyone in general -- on technical issues relating to wood, I figure I have a bit more largesse.
Sgian and I have been interacting and contributing to this forum for many years. We try to be helpful and answer the questions that are posed herein. I think we are both dedicated to educating other woodworkers and therein contribute to our trade's heritage and future. Sometimes we get a bit goofy and slide off on some rather inane tangents, but it is part of our interpersonal relationship that was developed through this forum. Sometimes we prefer to express our feeling in open forum rather than sending a selective private email -- and I doubt if that is not anything really radical because others do it as well.
What can I say, I guess I'm a child of the sixties that has yet to grow up. I can be serious and somber and extremely technical but once in a while I like to communicate in a more outrageously humorous manner. I wrote my message to Sgian and I am pleased that he found it funny. I thought my cynical wit was in top form! In retrospect I probably went a bit overboard -- I was maybe too harsh about HM QE II and her hats.
Personally I would like to see you contribute technically and intellectually to this forum as do Sgian and me. I did not see any postings in this thread other than your apparent carping at me about my mad humor. Maybe you thought me too critical of Ronald MacDonald, but after all, he is a clown. You obviously have a right to complain to the Board Pooh Bahs and have me censored. Before you do that I would suggest you peruse the positive contributions I make and therein decide how things balance out.
And you are however absolutely correct, I most certainly did not get it all out!!!
Edited 6/11/2002 11:04:08 PM ET by NIEMIEC1
O.K. give him a break, it took me a while to start reading your posts too. Once I did, I went back and read the ones that I had skipped and re-read all of the others. Just laugh and tell yourself that someday they will listen. And, when they do, they will realize that what they missed was a very intelligent person willing to give their time in an attempt to educate and help others. I do wish you would change the font but please dont change the candor or information.
By the way, nice takeoff with the Queen thing.. I was on the floor for darn near an hour. What the heck is that thing on her arm anyway.John
You are correct, I have only been reading along in this thread, and have not contributed herein. It seemed to me that just about everything had been well covered with regard to the white oak benches. Then I came to your "humorous" post.
Specifically, I found it annoying to listen to you call a group of people revolting. You certainly do have the "right" to say what you want, but in this case I found your comments to be offensive, that's all there is to it. Had you been speaking of any other group of people in general your comments might have been considered racist.
While I am very aware that this country has its shortcomings, the people who live here are just people living their lives. I don't feel they/we are any more or less revolting than any other group of peoples in this world. I believe that each one of us is doing the best that she or he can. Really, don't you? Give 'em a break! wb
WBWood1:
You wrote:
"I believe that each one of us is doing the best that she or he can. Really, don't you?"
And here comes one of my rants!!!!
No, I don't feel that we (each of us) is doing the best that she or he can! To do so requires ideals, morality, ethics, committment and dedication. I personally feel that we are a nation driven by self-serving self-interest and immediate gratification that more or less equates to gross cupidity.
Poverty and ignorance in this country is rampant. The educational system sucks. Medical care is extremely restrictive based entirely on economics. (Try affording medical insurance as a self-employed woodworker!) We are a society that is blatantly racist (exemplified by things like police practices of racial profiling, life expectancy and prison population demographics, and our current anti-Arab, anti-Muslim xenophobia). As a society, we are indifferently poisoning the earth, destroying habitat, and exterminating other species at an ever increasing rate. Our waste of natural resources is appalling.
How do we (as a society) deal with these issues? We watch an average of 5.5 hours of television per day (meaning if there are 12 minutes of commercials per hour, that we are propogandized with over an hour of corporate huckstering). General programing is based entirely on the lowest common demominator and continues to worsen with more portrayed violence, perversion and voyeurism. As I cited before, 25% of the population is obese and another 25% is overweight, indicating to me, both poor nutrition and pig-ishness. Drug consumption (alcohol, tobacco and the illegial substances) is dangerously pervasive. The "War on Drugs" is a failure and incredibly wasteful. State governments sustain themselves by running "legalized" gambling. The national pasttime used to be baseball; now it appears to be "shop 'til you drop", mostly buying faddish, shoddy, non-sustainable items produced in mostly third world countries that are exploitive of workers and destructive of indigenous cultures. Public transportation infrastructure is either non-existant or deteriorating while more and more gas-guzzling, polluting SUV's (complete with their cell-phone users) are all over the roads.
Corporate morality is non-existant (eg Enron and Wall Street). Workers/employees are treated as more or less disposable items. The legal system is so full of loopholes favoring special interests that it resembles a sieve. The bloated government agencies are corrupt, wasteful, and inefficient, run almost petty medieval fiefdoms. Our government's foreign policy is insane and immoral -- at one point in time, our government actually supported and allied itself with Osma bin Laden; and it supported/supports some of the most repressive and brutal dictatorships in the world. The two major political parties have been bought by corporate special interest groups that screw individual citizens. Justice, in my opinion, is entirely dependent on how much money is available.
Yet, as in Oregon where I live, 1 in 7 people do not have enough to eat, and where approximately 20% of the population (affecting predominantly children) cannot afford medical insurance or adequate medical care.
Our society's approach to homelessness and care for the mentally ill is shameful. Affordable, quality housing for lower income individuals is basically unavailable. More and more million dollar mansions are being built to house one or two individuals; with better structures to store automobiles and collected/purchased do-dah's and junk than are available for poor people. We isolate ourselves from neighbors and attempt to "protect" ourselves with guns and security systems. Due to the plethera of firearms, we have one of the most violent societies that ever existed with one of the highest murder rates in the world. Family (and extended family) continuity is atypical rather than normal. Loyalty to family, community, neighbors and friends has been replaced by loyalty to "brand-names".
No, we are not doing the best that we can. We accept the status quo assuming that we can do nothing to change it, don't want to get involved (and therein be branded as a "trouble-maker"), or more likely participate in it, to the hilt, with absolute indifference and self-serving gratification. I may be showing my age, but the Panthers in the '60's had it right -- you are either part of the problem or part of the solution!
NIEMIEC1
You revere the panthers of the '60's. I had three of them confront me on the PSU( Portland, Or.) campus while going to school there in 1969. One had a knife. They said I had let the swinging door slam in their face. They seemed to think I was part of the problem and just wanted to show me the Solution.
Which are you, Stanley, problem or solution? Are you the guy with the answers because you can rant about the problems and spew forth statistics supporting your position? I know I don't have the answers, but I am suspicious of people who refer to groups like "us" and "them". I wonder, are the people you call revolting ('and becoming the most revolting people who ever inhabited the earth') and obese, the same people who you are now so concerned about receiving medical insurance, enough to eat, and a good education?
Just so you know Stanley, I have paid for medical insurance, and raised a family of five on the wages of a woodworker. I didn't just start this vocation, it chose me a long time ago. I have no complaints and do not feel that woodworking owes me anything other than what I get in the pleasure and learning of each project.
When I say that I feel each one of us is doing the best she or he can, I mean that each individual, living person has her or his own circumstance and can't be lumped into a group and judged. That, I feel is exactly what you are doing. Period.
It's not right that we keep this up on the forum's air. If you feel like talking more on this, you can eme personally, but I don't think we should continue this here.wb
Hey Niem, it's 12 hours later and nothing angry or hostile has yet to appear. Yer just going to have to try harder, good buddy.
You're on to one of those finish phenomena that we sometimes don't think about. When we use oil base paints, some of the liquid (mineral spirts, turps)in the paint evaporates and some if it polymerizes to form a film. Together we say it dries. How well it penetrates and seals the wood is mostly a function of the quality of the paint but also of the preparation and application.
Water base paints are a whole 'nuther game. Start with a plastic, say an acrilate, alread fully polymerized. Grind it to a powder and treat it with a solvent, probably a glycol ether. Not much now, just enough to make these little particles realy stickey so that they want to clump together into a glob. Now the chemist comes along and makes an emulsion by adding water and other stuff so that each particle is separated by a thin film of water and chemicals that make those little bitty specs avoid each other. Now you've got a latex paint. You brush this latex paint on and the water disappears. Soaks into the wood, evaporates into the air. Whatever. Now it gets interesting. You can touch it. It's dry. And it didn't take hours, like oil based paint. When the water went away all those stickey little bits stuck to each other (and, we expect, to the wood). You're not supposed to wash a latex painted wall for a month. Thats because the glycol ether evaporates veerryy slowly. Think about how slowly spilled antifreez dries. Not the same stuff but close enough to illustrate the point. Anyway, when it's all evaporated, about a month later, that acrylic plastic is stuck together and all hardened up again.
Unlike oil paint, the latex was not a liquid that saturated the wood surface and then polymerized. Unlike oil paint, the latex coating breathes. I always thought, stupid me, that the acrilate particles were like stickey little golf balls that stick together where they touch and leave some breathing room between. Don't know whether I right or wrong. But like oil paint, the quality is in both the manufacture and in the preparation and application.
They both make a coating to protect the wood. And each can be a very good coating indeed. But they accomplish this in slightly different ways. Sometimes we have to choose which will do the best job for our purposes.
Now maybe a coatings chemist can come along and tell me that I'm full of it. Then we'll see about hostile and angry. LOL
BJ Gardening, cooking and woodworking in Southern Maryland
"Gimme a break -- that is about as illogical and absurd a statement as I have ever heard !!"
Thank you BeeJay for explaining it better then I did. I am no chemist but I know not to use a water base primer and paint on an outside project. In the 10 years that I have been doing outdoor furniture and projects I never once had a finishing problem. Maybe thats my problem, I have too much common sense. As for posting here, never again, to many posters in here never want to hear that they may have done somethng wrong and it has to be corrected.
Jerrald said the foolowing:
"I had a similar experience once with exterior furniture and what I found out was that KD white oak at 8% MC would return right back to around 12% MC as soon as you stick it outside."
Dave in Pa.
Edited 6/8/2002 12:19:15 PM ET by DAVE6281
Dave, I don't think that I answered anyones questions. What I had hoped to do was shine a little light on some technical differences in the two types of coatings which in turn, might help someone find his own answers. Water based coating technology has come a far piece in the 10 years since you stopped using it for outdoor applications. Some of the products might work just fine for you now. Of course, when you have something working for you, you need a reason to change. I, myself, don't know why the white oak checked so quickly. If there is future work riding on it, I'd try several good quality coatings and see which one delays the checking the longest. My personal opinion is that without recoating it is going to check eventually no matter what the coating type. If that is years enough down the road, the customer and every one else is probably satisfied.
BJGardening, cooking and woodworking in Southern Maryland
Oboy, we've certainly got a load of theories here! Then we've got the moisture content, and paints base, color and flavor, maybe.
Short of epoxy or wrapping it in plastic, we know that there will be moisture exchange, with just the rate varying. We also know the bench has to withstand wear, sun and rain, so nothing you do now will stay perfect over time.
Back to the basics, perhaps. How thick and wide was the wood used? How was it fastened? How did you allow for movement, and did you prevent water from collecting in any holes made for fasteners? Was this flatsawn? How wild is the grain? Are these surface checks, or very deep? Just because it's absorbing more moisture doesn't mean it has to split. After all, it once had much more moisture in it. Yes, a high rate of uneven moisture exchange can cause this, but why would that happen? Yes, a few spots might have problems, but your post suggested many locations.
Some alternative woods would be mahogany or ipe. The latter is inexpensive and sold for decking material. Both stand up well outside, and have very mild grain patterns.
Gerry
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