I have a Pine wood slab bar top that I want to finish. Its going to be outdoors. I would like it darker, and shiny. What will hold up outdoors and not yellow.
I have a Pine wood slab bar top that I want to finish. Its going to be outdoors. I would like it darker, and shiny. What will hold up outdoors and not yellow.
I think you'll have to go with either a dye, if you want to see grain, or paint. Stain doesn't work well for pine. You can also char it, if you like that look. For outdoor use and shiny, a polyester resin would probably hold up.
Pine dents easily. Not sure I'd recommend it as a bar top.
A polyurethane varnish would do a pretty good job of protecting it from weather, and will cause unfinished pine to appear a good bit darker, and yellower. If you do choose to stain it, start with a "pre-stain" which will seal many of the pores and make the stain application appear more uniform and less "blotchy".
What about some sort of pourable resin to seal it and act as the top surface?
https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Epoxy-Coating-Casting-Gallon/dp/B00IT0APVM
http://www.bestbartopepoxy.com/bartop-epoxy/
Related:
I take all junk screws/nails/bolts and toss them in a jar in the garage (I'm paranoid of them falling out the bottom of a trash bag onto the ground and creating a flat tire). I fill the jar with vinegar. Let them soak a while then pour through a filter. Stir it up, then brush it onto wood to stain. If you want it to pop a bit more, brush tea on it afterward. Then seal.
It reacts totally differently to different types of wood. Whatever I used (scrap) for the table for my deck turned a deep red-brown. My coworker used some on a piece of white oak and it was an amazing medium gray.
Personally, I would not go with Pine wood for a bar top. I like to use Walnut due to it's shock resistance and rand of colors.
In terms of protecting the wood, there are tons of different brands that sell clear epoxy resin coating for tabletop and bar tops. I chose to go with Primo Resin because I like the glossy finish this product offers. It's also scratch resistant durable.
I would suggest you look at technical specs (SDS) for several clear epoxy resin on the market and pick the one that have the product characteristics you would be looking for. Hope this helps!
In reply to ProDarwin :
That is Cool!!!'
In reply to ProDarwin :
That is cool. I assume you need to start with pretty rusty nails and screws? Do you have any pics of the finish after it has been applied?
Biggest problem with pine is that many times the sap in the wood comes out of the grain with time and bubbles up under the finish.
Sap bubbles up even when the wood is really dry? Anywho, I use an epoxy which is resistant to water marks and minor scratches, I rolled it on with a 4" foam roller. This is a slab of black locust, you can also buy colored powder to mix into the finish. If I did it again I would go for satin finish, not the gloss. Ian has two of these for outdoor benches and they hold up pretty well.
Given the softness of pine, I would look to an epoxy or polyester resin poured on it. That way in order to dent the wood you have to first dent solid plastic. It will really up the durability and won't need periodic recoating like a spar varnish. Polyurethane isn't very UV resistant, so I would skip that.
You can also tint the resin. Staining pine often makes uneven and highly contrasting patches. Where the phloem of the wood arches up into the cut it will soak up a lot of stain, and where the phloem is flat it won't soak up much at all. Knots will get super dark. If you like that look, go for it. I just didn't want you to do it and then curse me out as you spend 4 hours with 80 grit paper to un-stain it. If you tint the resin, you can darken the whole thing evenly to your taste. What I would do is mix up some resin without hardener and add tint. Pour a little puddle on a scrap piece and add more tint until you get the desired darkness and then go one more shade darker. That way when you add the hardener it will lighten up close to your target shade.
Polyester resin (shooting from the hip here as I'm not confident on this) I think will hold up better to UV, but it will float on top of the wood... meaning it won't make the grain pop. Epoxy will act kind of like polyurethane in that it will highlight the grain. Again... that's just some stuff I picked up in my brain, but experiment for yourself.
AND PICS WHEN IT'S DONE!
ProDarwin said:Related:
I take all junk screws/nails/bolts and toss them in a jar in the garage (I'm paranoid of them falling out the bottom of a trash bag onto the ground and creating a flat tire). I fill the jar with vinegar. Let them soak a while then pour through a filter. Stir it up, then brush it onto wood to stain. If you want it to pop a bit more, brush tea on it afterward. Then seal.
It reacts totally differently to different types of wood. Whatever I used (scrap) for the table for my deck turned a deep red-brown. My coworker used some on a piece of white oak and it was an amazing medium gray.
You are a genius.
My understand is that outdoor furniture with an epoxy or polyurethane finish will eventually have the finish fail. Then you will need to sand 100% of the finish off and reapply which is not a fun process. I don't know about using it on pine, but we sanded 100% of the failed poly off the teak table on the rooftop deck and had an oil finish applied. So far so good. You need to maintain it, which just means reapplying oil on a schedule. No need to sand the old stuff off.
If your furniture is outdoors but under cover it may not be as much of an issue. This table is fully exposed to the elements.
dculberson said:My understand is that outdoor furniture with an epoxy or polyurethane finish will eventually have the finish fail. Then you will need to sand 100% of the finish off and reapply which is not a fun process. I don't know about using it on pine, but we sanded 100% of the failed poly off the teak table on the rooftop deck and had an oil finish applied. So far so good. You need to maintain it, which just means reapplying oil on a schedule. No need to sand the old stuff off.
If your furniture is outdoors but under cover it may not be as much of an issue. This table is fully exposed to the elements.
Correct.
All finishes on wood that lives outside will fail as no matter what the wood will "breath" by taking in moisture and releasing it, expanding and contracting; in an air conditioned building it can be fairly stable. There's also nothing out there that is so UV resistant that it will not yellow (Dad is a Smithsonian trained furniture conservator, which is where I'm getting this)
However, there are a few things that will still work well enough. Its about what you're prepared to put up with and what you want to repair in the future.
Maybe a glass sheet on top of the wood so you don't have to worry about scratches and dents? Might open up the options for finishes. If the purpose of using pine is cost, that would probably mitigate the savings.
Maybe use cedar and let it weather.
The pine is probably rotted away by now
Holy Zombie Thread, Batman!
But not a canoe? This Woodworker_Mike chap seems to be offering actual good advice and isn't hawking anything. Weird
woodworker_Mike said:Personally, I would not go with Pine wood for a bar top. I like to use Walnut due to it's shock resistance and rand of colors.
In terms of protecting the wood, there are tons of different brands that sell clear epoxy resin coating for tabletop and bar tops. I chose to go with Primo Resin because I like the glossy finish this product offers. It's also scratch resistant durable.
I would suggest you look at technical specs (SDS) for several clear epoxy resin on the market and pick the one that have the product characteristics you would be looking for. Hope this helps!
Plus because of the Tannins in Black Walnut it's extremely decay resistant. Bugs ( termites) don't like to eat it either.
Wood peckers give a few tentative taps. And fly away disgusted
Black walnut is absolutely gorgeous with a good coat of Varnish it just doesn't last that way
However Black walnut will turn grey when exposed to sunlite no matter what you do. It takes 5-7 years.
All the exterior Timbers and trim on my house were black Walnut. I tried various varnishes. Tried clear lacquers and polyurethanes. 3-4 years the wood is pretty light colored. And starts turning grey in the 5-7 years.
Keep it out of sunlite and it's fine.
White oak is the same.
In reply to psteav (Forum Supporter) :
Maybe Mike is a real person who's trying to be helpful. Weird, but it happens.
Man, we need a followup to find out what happened with this slab.
psteav (Forum Supporter) said:Holy Zombie Thread, Batman!
But not a canoe? This Woodworker_Mike chap seems to be offering actual good advice and isn't hawking anything. Weird
Dang it... I got suckered.
1988RedT2 said:Pine dents easily. Not sure I'd recommend it as a bar top.
A polyurethane varnish would do a pretty good job of protecting it from weather, and will cause unfinished pine to appear a good bit darker, and yellower. If you do choose to stain it, start with a "pre-stain" which will seal many of the pores and make the stain application appear more uniform and less "blotchy".
What about some sort of pourable resin to seal it and act as the top surface?
https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Epoxy-Coating-Casting-Gallon/dp/B00IT0APVM lol beans
http://www.bestbartopepoxy.com/bartop-epoxy/
I have some pictures, can you check for me? Thanks
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