Finish for oak gates

[ajmoore1]

Hi,

I have eventually nearly got to end of my gate making project. The gates are steel frame clad with oak t&g boards within an oak frame. I am planning on using Sikkens light oak finish on the gates. Some of the oak board have a few knots and the odd boards have little splits in. Is it worth filling the the knots/shakes with a filler? If so what would you recommend or should i just leave them as they are.

Cheers

Jon

 

[yetloh]

If they were mine I wouldn't put anything on them at all and let them go that nice silvery colour to which oak weathers. It is notoriously difficult to keep a continuous film of finish on the open grain of oak over time, so only finish it if you are prepared to keep refinishing at regular intervals. What you do need to do is to stop the oak coming into contact with bare steel because this will very rapidly lead to black staining of the oak as a result of a reaction between the steel and tannic acid in the oak. Is the steel galvanised? If not, it will need to be very well finished.

Jim