Maintaining Wood-Grain Textured Siding
Once painted with this technique, a house’s unsightly dings are a thing of the past.
Our current project is bringing back to life some old redwood siding on the exterior of a house. As I was doing some prep work filling holes and cracks with Elmer’s ProBond professional strength interior/exterior wood filler, I realized typical sandpaper wouldn’t finish out the way we prefer. The siding is grainy and wants to stay that way, but sanding would leave behind a smooth finish. As an alternative, I used a wire brush to finish the wood filler. I kept the brush moving back and forth in the same direction as the grain so the wire bristles would plow out the valleys while leaving the peaks. It worked best when the filler was completely dry. When it was wet, the brush dug all the filler out of the hole and I had to start over. Once painted, the house’s dings are a thing of the past.
— Mike Alexander, Monrovia, Md.
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Nice Tip. Thanks!