Many of us have teak furniture in the garden because it possesses two very important qualities for garden furniture: it is very beautiful and highly resistant to the elements. But over time, they gradually lose their color and sometimes even turn gray. In this project, I am going to apply teak oil to a teak chair to protect the wood, restore the teak color, and make it look like new.
For this project, I will use Xylazel teak oil, a product made of natural oils and resins that penetrate the pores to nourish and enrich the wood. First, sand all the surfaces of the chair with medium-grit sandpaper. This will help remove any stains that may have appeared, and the product will penetrate the wood better. If the teak furniture has any varnish or was painted at some point and we now want to restore the original color, we can apply a stripper. It may also happen that the wood is very gray, in which case we can use a gray wood cleaner.
Once the teak chair is sanded, I thoroughly clean off the dust and apply a generous coat of teak oil with a brush. This product is very easy to apply, penetrating very well into the wood and leaving a very even color. These pieces of furniture are usually made with many slats, so I only have to worry about covering all the nooks and crannies well.
Once I have applied the product to all the surfaces, I wait 15 minutes, allowing the wood to absorb the oil well. With a cloth, I clean the excess oil off the brush, and after the 15 minutes, with the clean brush, I spread the oil well over the entire surface. In 24 hours, the chair is ready for another coat, although in this case, it was not necessary.
To finish and leave a shinier finish on this teak chair, when the oil is dry, I can take a lint-free cloth, moisten it in the oil, and with quick movements, apply a thin layer over the entire surface.
But if your furniture is made of woods very rich in tannins, which can cause stains on the wood and even prevent the products applied from adhering well, you might be interested in my article where I use a tropical wood primer to block tannins. A product that was not necessary to use for these teak pieces.