Cleaning and Surface Preparation

Proper Cleaning of Teak and Other Oily Woods is Essential

Let me start by stating that I have personally cleaned and applied TeakGuard Finish to 50 or 60 of the nastiest Smith Hawkin benches you are likely to have ever seen. I have also cleaned and finished 6 or so swim steps and platforms and no, I have not actually refinished the deck on a boat but I have guided many who have done so very successfully. That is how I learned what you are about to read. The first thing I personally learned was that hard oily woods are not like any other wood I have ever worked with bar none. So if you are a pine or walnut expert, be prepared for information that flies in the face of what you know about those woods. They are not the same and are do not respond the same as hard oily woods like teak and IPE or iron wood.

Using TeakGuard Products on any hard oily wood including teak, mahogany, cedar, cypress, iron wood, etc., the procedures described below will work just fine if you substitute the name of your wood for teak.

In order for TeakGuard Finish to bond with the surface of the wood must be free of mold, dead wood, sanding dust and the naturally occurring oil or resin that saturates the wood and protects it from many naturally occurring predators.

If the wood's surface has deteriorated to the point that it must be sanded to produce the look you want, wet sand it to produce the finish you seek before you start the cleaning process. Sand with 60 to 80 (120 for very fine finish) grit bonded belt sanding material and pressing only hard enough to make contact with the wood. Dry sanding generates heat that melts the naturally occurring teak oil. This oil and wood dust mix to form a hard paste that loads the sand paper and fills the grain of the wood, preventing TeakGuard Finish from effectively bonding with the wood. If your sand paper is loading with sanding dust (and oil), the wood is loading as well. This loading of the wood must be removed before applying TeakGuard Finish. Wet sanding with "bonded" belt sanding material (as used on floor sanders and cut to fit your sander) works better than anything else we have tried.

Sanding smoothes the surface of the wood and removes much of the mold, dead wood and oxidized oil from the surface, but it does not clean the wood in the manner necessary to apply TeakGuard Finish! Every time you remove some wood by sanding or buffing with bronze wool new fresh teak oil is exposed and smeared around the wood. It needs to be removed before finishing.

New and Old Teak Cleaning

Whether your teak is brand new, freshly sanded, freshly pressure washed or just gray with oxidized teak oil, it all needs to be cleaned with a product designed specifically to remove the naturally occurring teak oil that saturates the wood from the surface of the wood.

Teak Cleaning Products

Household products including chlorine bleach and diluted chlorine pool shock will lighten your teak but are ineffective at removing teak oil. Some of the teak cleaners available at local marinas are made of sodium hydroxide. Both chlorine bleaching products and sodium hydroxide products are very difficult to remove completely, and over time their residue will weaken the bonding fibers that hold the main wood fibers together. This often results in the finish peeling off with the damaged wood fibers stuck to the back of the peeled off finish. This generally only happens once in any specific area of cleaner damaged wood, but may occur later in other areas of the finished wood.

TeakGuard Cleaners

Since 1982, TeakGuard products have been on the market. During that time TeakGuard's oxalic acid cleaner has produced the best overall results of the cleaners available from a number of aspects including:

• Relatively safe
• Very effective
• Environmentally friendly
• Inexpensive
• Does not damage the wood

But it requires a fair amount of that very hard to find material "elbow grease" and can streak (clean) fiber glass and Gel Coat. It must also be rinsed thoroughly from any metal work.

In 2003 TeakGuard Products developed a new cleaner that is:

• Very Safe
• Easy to use
• Fast acting
• Requires much less material
• Requires much less work
• Is very effective
• Is pH neutral
• Very safe
• Biodegradable
• Environmentally very friendly
• Will not damage deck calking, fiber glass finishes, or metal work.

But costs more per ounce!

As a result, TeakGuard Products' offers two cleaners. Our old stand by TeakGuard Cleaner contains oxalic acid and our new product, TeakGuard Super Cleaner. Super Cleaner is much faster and easier to use. It is more costly on a per ounce basis but not on a per square foot cleaned basis. IE Considering the cost of the cleaner used per square foot of wood being cleaned and the cost of your time and effort required to produce the desired result, the Super Cleaner wins hands down!

Using TeakGuard Super Cleaner

The TeakGuard Super Cleaner is applied with the included mist sprayer. For large areas, it can be diluted up to 1 part cleaner 2 parts water and applied with a trigger sprayer. This will provide more water, allowing the area being cleaned to stay wet longer. In either case the cleaner needs to be damp for 60 to 90 seconds in order to soften the material being removed from your teak with minimal effort.

TeakGuard Super Cleaner is in the de-greaser class of cleaners. It dissolves the teak resin and it will dissolve the oil in your skin as well. Wear rubber gloves when using TeakGuard Super Cleaner.

Using a small, short polypropylene bristled scrub brush, brush along the grain with about the same pressure you would use to clean your fingernails with the same brush. (We have done extensive research on which brush works the best and found that the Libman #15 (or #18 for tight places) brush works the best and lasts the longest. It is available at many grocery stores this web site and is included with all 3 TeakGuard Kits. Add a small amount of water as you brush, then rinse the entire area. Before spraying the next area to be cleaned, wipe the excess water away. Limit your cleaning area to no more than 2 square feet.

After you have finished the entire area or piece of furniture, hose off the area with a fresh water and a nozzle. Allow the area to dry until it becomes light brown and start the TeakGuard Finish process. Do not wait until the next day to apply the first coat of TeakGuard Finish.

Super Cleaner will not remove TeakGuard Finish or other finishes unless they were applied on top of teak oil. It will not remove mold that is growing directly on the wood either. Mold can be easily removed by wiping the area with course bronze wool and then cleaning with Super Cleaner and a brush.

Once an area is cleaned, do not sand or use bronze wool on the area because you will be exposing new teak oil/resin that will need to be removed.

Using TeakGuard Oxalic Acid Cleaner

As mentioned above, cleaners containing sodium hydroxide and chlorine bleach will weaken the surface of your teak among other unpleasant side effects.

Using TeakGuard Oxalic acid cleaner is effective but labor intensive. Apply the oxalic acid cleaner to the area being cleaned. Let it stand for 3 to 5 minutes and then buff the area with bronze wool and/or a stiff plastic bristled brush until the wood turns brown. Add water and continue brushing until the run off is clear. After the wood has dried, there should be a fuzz or grain rise everywhere on the wood except on the end-grain.

If there are areas that did not achieve a grain raise, there is still teak oil on the surface that must be removed. TeakGuard Finish finish can not penetrate the teak oil to bond with the surface of the wood. The cleaning and rinsing process should be repeated in the area where the grain rise did not occur. When a complete grain rise has occurred, you can start applying TeakGuard Finish.

Failing to remove all the teak oil will cause the finish to come off in the areas that the teak oil was not removed.

There are cases where a grain rise can not be achieved as in the case where the wood has been wet sanded with 120 grit paper. If the entire area does not achieve a grain rise, and the pores of the wood appears to be free debris, you are probably good to go. The cost of being wrong is; the finish will come off after 3 to 6 months in the sun.

Things You Should Never Do To Your Teak

Never ever use regular steel wool on or around your teak, because it leaves fragments of steel that will rust and discolor your teak. Once steel wool fragments are imbedded in teak, they are very difficult to remove.

Never ever use a steel bristled brush on your teak. They leave fragments that rust too.

Never use brake fluid, automatic transmission fluid, motor oil, ammonia, sodium hydroxide, chlorine bleach, or acids stronger than oxalic acid on your teak!

Belt sanders are really great tools for grinding away lots of wood. Don't use them on your teak. They are just too hard to control. Palm sanders (electric) and jitter bug sanders (air driven) work great. Dry sanding works poorly regardless of the type of sander used.