Warm today and I do not know how to give spiderbuddy a drink...will leave a plate with water at the base..
Was it not maintained for 15 years to get that look? What does a fresh cut board look like?View attachment 109112
Alaskan Yellow Cedar.
Aged 15 years on a deck. If you could get it clear, or very few knots, it would be sensational. Still needs care.
He also said something about,
View attachment 109112
Alaskan Yellow Cedar.
Aged 15 years on a deck. If you could get it clear, or very few knots, it would be sensational. Still needs care.
That bright yellow on the edge is a fresh cut. It’s quite fine grained wood. The growth rings are prob 3-4 times finer than western red cedar, 4-5 times finer than the hemlock underneath in the photo. That’s a guess.Was it not maintained for 15 years to get that look? What does a fresh cut board look like?
You could power wash it completely clean and use a solid color stain to get a gray color you want. If you plan on taking all the boards up and cutting that damaged edge off you could also flip the boards and get a second chance to let it age naturally, it would let you reattach them with the proper spacing. But that is a lot of work. Good luck on the project, maybe you could post some pictures in the what have you been doing thread.That bright yellow on the edge is a fresh cut. It’s quite fine grained wood. The growth rings are prob 3-4 times finer than western red cedar, 4-5 times finer than the hemlock underneath in the photo. That’s a guess.
Nothing done for probably 10 years. They originally laid the boards too tight so pine needles and dirt built up between in many spots. Even that prob would be not that bad if you cleaned it out with low pressure wash twice a year, or even just once. The killer to the board ends was the framing had a flat nailer underneath for the boarder. So every deck board end was on a solid surface. It never dried out, moss grew, ants attacked some.
Here’s an end-
View attachment 109124
Properly laid, if you’re ok with not a smooth surface, even with little to no care it would be ok. That’s in VT. For some reason, when this was built there was local supply of Alaskan Yellow Cedar.
Even with all that, if you cut the ends off, removed the most rotten edge pieces, most of it was solid. But the knots pop up, and you get a lot of surface defects, you get some depressions that hold water. Lack of pre drilling and counter sinking for screws also caused damage that gets worse over the years.
It needs sanding unless you’re ok with it. It really needs a finish. So there goes the natural gray.