Refinish Garage Door

ruascott

Hi, I've recently gone through the brutal task of sanding and re-staining my wood garage door. I've used Cabot Semi-Solid Oil Siding-Stain. My question is should I now cover this with some sort of poly?

The original finish had some sort of poly/varnish on it that was chipping and peeling as the door is 15-20 years old.

What type of product would you recommned?

Thanks!

slickshift

Nope/None
Leave it be

Matthewt1970

I would leave it alone as well. Just give it another coat of stain in 5 years or so.

TheDIYerGuy

Hey ruascott, slick and Matthew are right, don't put anything on top of the stained finish. Unlike interior stains, exterior stains are made to protect on their own without aid of a polyurethane or spar varnish. One last thing to remember is when your your garage door allows water to soak into the surface (instead of beading the water) you know you can reapply a semi-transparent (semi-solid) stain. This usually happens, as Matthew1970 said, in about 5 years on vertical surfaces if you got a decent stain. Hope this helps.

ruascott

Hmm....what would happen if i were to put a spar varnish on it? Only reason I ask is that its kind of dull looking now, no shine at all, where the newer doors i see have more of a shine to them.

ruascott

Hmmm....what would happen if I applied a spar varnish on top of this product? Reason I ask is that it currently has a very dull look to it, no shine whatsoever, where newer doors have a nice looking shine to them. Thanks

slickshift

Correct, that type of stain is meant to look flat
I'm sure Cabot would not suggest anything over top of it, I wouldn't anyway
But give them a call...

As for the Spar....eeehhh.....
I gotta tell you it's not all that some people think it is
First off, if you don't do all six sides, moisture will creep in rather quickly
When that happens to S/V, it starts to peel and expose discolored wood
The only true fix at that point is to sand it all down and re-apply

It also needs a maintenance coat once a year
You might get more....but if you skip it and it starts to go, you get the scenario described above

For the look you want, w/o the maint., I'd recommend Sikkens Door & Window
Depending on where you are and which way the door faces, probably two coats color and a top coat of clear
You'll need to sand it down to bare wood though, so you might want to wait a year or two, when (depending) you might need a maint. coat (more Cabot) anyway, but you'll have much less to remove