Hello everyone, I was hoping to get some advice as to how to proceed with my project. Eight months ago I put the cladding on my new shed/office I built on my property. I have sort of a unique situation in that for the cladding I used wood that I created with a hybrid shou sugi ban method. By that I mean I started with Pine cladding from Home Depot. I slightly burned the wood with a weed torch enough to bring out the grain. I then painted on Varathane Weathered Grey Stain and quickly brushed it off. After that I sealed it with Minwax water based Spar Urethane - 3 coats.
And that's now where my problem comes in. It's only been eight months and the wood isn't looking so great. There is mildew forming as you can see from photos on many of the boards. This is very disappointing because I put over a hundred hours into preparing this wood, installing it, etc. I have been able to get about 75% of the dirt/mildew off with soap/water/laundry detergent/clorox.... but unfortunately on some of the boards it's not going anywhere. I just bought some JoMax at Home Depot and I'm going to try that next.
My bigger issue is - how do I protect this wood moving forward? At first I was just going to reapply the water-based Minwax, but I see now it's pointless. I live in Atlanta and the shed is also fifty feet from the Chattahoochee river so things can stay humid. We have a had a brutal past eight months with remnants of hurricanes coming through plus an unseasonably wet summer.... so I'm sure that's contributed to the mildew forming.
One of my biggest problems is I can't really sand the wood because it will take off the unique designs in the wood from the above mentioned process I used. When I sand the wood it just scuffs up the urethane layer. I have been able to get the wood looking somewhat nice again even though there is some mildew left so if there was just some kind of impenetrable sealant layer I could now brush on over, I'd be in good shape.
Finally, I've looked over the forums and seen people suggest things like Waterlox, Sikkens, etc..... so I was just hoping to get some expert advice on which way people think I should go with this. My goal is to find something that actually works, is clear, and is something that I have to reapply as infrequently as possible because it's a big job! Thanks in advance! -Mark
And that's now where my problem comes in. It's only been eight months and the wood isn't looking so great. There is mildew forming as you can see from photos on many of the boards. This is very disappointing because I put over a hundred hours into preparing this wood, installing it, etc. I have been able to get about 75% of the dirt/mildew off with soap/water/laundry detergent/clorox.... but unfortunately on some of the boards it's not going anywhere. I just bought some JoMax at Home Depot and I'm going to try that next.
My bigger issue is - how do I protect this wood moving forward? At first I was just going to reapply the water-based Minwax, but I see now it's pointless. I live in Atlanta and the shed is also fifty feet from the Chattahoochee river so things can stay humid. We have a had a brutal past eight months with remnants of hurricanes coming through plus an unseasonably wet summer.... so I'm sure that's contributed to the mildew forming.
One of my biggest problems is I can't really sand the wood because it will take off the unique designs in the wood from the above mentioned process I used. When I sand the wood it just scuffs up the urethane layer. I have been able to get the wood looking somewhat nice again even though there is some mildew left so if there was just some kind of impenetrable sealant layer I could now brush on over, I'd be in good shape.
Finally, I've looked over the forums and seen people suggest things like Waterlox, Sikkens, etc..... so I was just hoping to get some expert advice on which way people think I should go with this. My goal is to find something that actually works, is clear, and is something that I have to reapply as infrequently as possible because it's a big job! Thanks in advance! -Mark