Tips on Sanding/Varnishing a Gate?

Dades

Hi folks,

Finally I'm going to sand and paint my exterior gates this weekend.
These are the gates - I'm just wondering if there is anything I should be aware of before i get cracking.

I have a power sander - do I just sand off all the paint (not just the flakey parts) and put a few coats of varnish on it?

Yes - I'm new to sanding.

ircoha

the pic is quite under exposed due to sky at top so hard to see the flaky bits.

lots of work to clean them off

my experience is that if u just take off the flaky bits down to the wood u will see them if u use clear varnish

AckwelFoley

Hold tight there..
Are you varnishing them or using a woodstain?

Dades

snyper wrote:

Hold tight there..
Are you varnishing them or using a woodstain?

Ah yes - you see I don't know!

There are a number of very flaky areas on the gate, but other bits are fine. Does that mean I'll have to sand the whole thing down, and then re-stain it?

Or could/should I just sand the bad bits - stain them - and varnish the rest?

I told you I was new to this!

AckwelFoley

I will presume you are using a woodstain.

From what is see from the picture you need to get "sadolin extra" In teak.

Then the process to prepare the gate is simple, as you said remove all the loose flakey varnish/stain from the gate and all possible roughness from the gate, this will be simple enough with the sander with a meduim grit sandpaper, 100 grit should be fine.

Brush off all dust from the gate after your sanding session and i would think you will need 2 coats of stain.

The key to woodstaining and painting. 2 or 3 light coats is better than 1 thich slapped on coat

What i mean is dip in your brush, and paint on, but dont dip again until you have the very last drop brushed out. Noobs are terrors for slapping on woodstain and paint far too thick and it looks terrible.

Wertz

Have to agre with snyper, thinned coats of stain build up a better finish (and protection) than one thick coat. Add about 15% white spirit and brush out well in the direction of the grain. TBH though, I'd say you'd get away with 2 coats since whoever did it last time fired it on (one of the reasons it's flaking possibly)
Allow AT LEAST 24 hrs between coats, since it's oil-based (don't use water based, it's crap), be sure to sand lightly between each coat and dust off before applying the next.

One thing though, after prep, when you have all the flaky bits gone, it's looking like you're going to be back to bare wood in places; specifically where the crossbraces meet the verticals slats, from what I can make out in the photo...
You're going to need to build up these bare areas by spot priming them with unthinned stain. These areas too will need to dry for a day.
Obviously avoid coating it if rain is due within 6 hours of it's application and try to avoid doing it in the late evening if it looks like there might be a frost (impedes curing, damages sheen level)

So that's possibly 4 days to finish which sounds like a lot but if you want it to last, then that's what it'll take...best of luck with it.

Dades

Thanks guys - loads of good advice there.

Too much wine on Friday put pay to a start work today - but tomorrow is another day!