With photos - Questions on sand & stain recycled & new merbau 90x19 / Cutek Extreme

Excellent! Just what I needed to hear thanks jimj. So I'm returning back my unopened 60 grit (every penny counts!).

Yeah I did start on it in Bubs nap today, got two hours and a lot done. Thankfully I went with 40 grit which I'm glad was the way to go! and had a shop vac bodgied up to the sander with some tube and a zip tie, love that setup!. Did start in on some of the new planks also with the 40 grit and both the new and the new with stain went to a blond colour whereas the silvered old stuff went to the nice red I remembered.

QUESTION: what's up with the new stuff sanding back to a blond colour? Here in this picture the red stuff in the middle around the pole is unsanded new stuff, then at the front is sanded new planks that had one coat of stain, kind of dirty blond in colour. You can see clearly what I mean at the ends of the red stuff where my border sanding got the ends of the unsanded new stuff a bit. Down the back is all old wood that I've sanded the borders and left side.


I get what you mean about messing the deck before the stain goes down (Edit: Oh! I see! Ha ha all the mess you can see on my boards is the Cutek stain where I had the boards flipped for doing the bottoms and sides). When I called Cutek, like you, they said new merbau didn't need to weather or leach out the tannins as their product 'locked in the tannins' maybe that applies to all oil based stains or water based as well? I did speak to another guy today who hasn't stained his deck and it has leached out tannins onto his limestone pool paving, wonder if his builder said 'have to let it weather before "you" stain it and I'm gone' like tilers say on the way out 'yeah you ought to put sealer on the grout' and it never gets done (at least in our case!).

also after experimenting with the square drive Bunnings screws and cutting wood plugs, although that was fun from a woodworking point of view I figured I didnt have the time and went with the spax deck screws as per your comments elsewhere here. Funny story the local Perth agent had no idea about them and tried to charge me $800 for something that I ended up getting for under $150 direct from Brisbane (they even had a neat kit on offer with drill bit, drive bit, spacers and fixings) despite the agents best efforts to put me off I am sticking with them, they are a great fixing!

thanks again!

Wow didn't know that about a mix of similar species JohnC, had been thinking it must have been from different age trees or different parts of the log. Will see how it goes with the Cutek Extreme Oil, I'm prepared for it to be a bit different colour showing through on the lighter and darker boards as its so distinctly different in the raw still. Point taken about it aging to a closer match. All up it took me about 6 or 7 hours to sand it back 40 & 80 grit with a Bosch 300watt 150mm ROS. Dreamed of a gutsier sander throughout! This is a photo after hosing it off.

QUESTION
We are forecast a lot of rain tomorrow. Will all that moisture make the fibres in the grain stand up? I'm wondering if I'll need to give it a quick once over with 80 or 120 grit before applying the oil. Fortunately after tomorrow it should be a dry week here.

I MIGHT TRY A DARKER TINT TO REDUCE THE VISIBLE DIFFERENCE OF THE LIGHT AND DARK BOARDS
My first 4 litres of stain is almost all used up coating the undersides and sides so I thought I could do a trial of a few of the darker and lighter planks with the existing tint to see if the colour variation is acceptable. Might do that with off cuts tomorrow. Then decide if it needs a darker tint on the next tin to better hide the colour difference. The 'Autumn' tint I already have is one of a couple recommended for merbau that is not as heavy/opaque so the wood features can still be seen well.

Thanks again guys it's great for home gamers like me that you are generous with your knowledge.