just made a porch floor out of 5/4 ipe. I know it won’t rot, but I would like to seal it so it doesn’t gray. The pain dealers I’ve been to are skeptical that any of the common seal/stains (thompson’s, cabot, sikkens) would penetrate such a hard wood – they recommend a surface varnish but they warn that graying comes from UV light, not moisture so it might still turn gray. Anyone had any luck penetrating ipe?
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Use Penofin.
Ask "Pro-Dek" for more thoughts -- he has a lot of postings about decking projects. He has a bunch of photos in the Photo Gallery section here under "Ironwood Deck (1200 sq ft )".
"no member Pro-Dek" according to the email function of these posts. spelling perhaps?
Pro-Dek is almost certainly a nickname rather than an official login name. What you need to do is find a message to or from Pro-Dek (Shouldn't be hard. Just scan through recent messages topics including "deck.") and click on his name. A profile will pop up and you can click on "Send E-Mail" in the upper right corner. Be aware that some people have not been getting e-mail sent to them through the forum.
Or you can start a new thread with Pro-Dek in the subject and post your question. That should get his attention.
You can call me stupid, but I thought after watching this much HGTV that one thing I knew was that Ipe wasn't supposed to need finnish. I guess I should pay better attention.
Dan
Shel --
Go to the Photo Gallery section on the left. About the 6th listing is the ipe deck thread from Pro-Dek. (posted about 10-20)
Here's a link to a previous thread...not that you really needed it, but...
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=20052.3
One hint: You're losing valuable time if you want to keep the original look of the wood. In other words, if you want to keep ipe's naturally brown appearance, get your arse in gear. Buy some penofin and get it on the wood. If you wait too long you'll have to sand the deck down to get rid of the damaged/discolored fibers, then apply.
Penofin is the best thing out there for protecting ipe from UV damage.
Hey Shel,,just a little Ipe 101,,left alone with or without direct sunlight it will go to a sliver gray and stay that way( execpt under the door mat) while devoliping a few surface cracks that dont hurt anything a whole lot, they built the Alantic City boardwalk out of it in the 1950s its never been finished just walked on a lot,great stuff,,if you do want to finish it the best I have fround yet is TWP, the 100 series,rustic and cedertone natural or a combation of the two works best for me,on the other end of the scale,dont use anything that has thomphens or bier on the lable,it is possable to keep close to the natural color but it takes a lot of work,cleaning,mabey a couple of oclic acid washes,and several light coats say 5 or so over a period of a year and a half,,and yes it does get into ipe and stay there,but you have to work on it!! something most folks I do work for dont want to do,,John Hyatt deckmastersllc.com
shel,
Ive had awesome success with teak oil on 4 decks in as many years my clients on the older decks have done them every year as I suggested and those 3 decks look brand new. These decks are all in seattle. good luck and what ever you do do it quick if you want to keepthat pretty red color without sanding.
shel,
I've seen recommendations for Penofin - check out
http://www.paulopedecking.com
(Pau Lope is a sub-species of the ipe family)
Pete
After watching a friends Ipe deck, looking at the cost, and hearing them talk about the issues of maintaining the wood look, having to seal, reseal, and the checking (read splits)how they wish they had never heard of Ipe, I tossed that idea and went with Trex. Now they wish they had as well.Wine is God's way of capturing the sun.
thanks for everyone's responses - sounds like lots of votes for penofin, plus one strong vote for TWP - being chicago and it's already getting into the 30's out there, I'll pick one and get it done this weekend. thanks again!