Quick Sikkens / Cetol question

[Woody]

I need to redo my toe rail as some of the coverage is giving way. Do I need to sand down to bare wood again or can I just use a green or red scuff pad to rough up and recover? Thanks, Woody

[Ed Haley]

Depends. If your toerail has lost it's previous cetol coatings and is down to the bare wood, you have to treat the exposed teak as if it had never been coated at all. Sand the spots with 100 grit, vacuum, bleach the spot, dry with an acetone-damp cloth (try not to touch adjoining cetol), lightly sand again with 100 grit, use a tack cloth to remove all fine dust and then apply your first coat. After 3 coats, do the entire toerail.

If you merely need to restore the coatings or just add a coat or two, the use a green scotchbrite pad over the whole toerail, use the tack cloth and apply cetol.

[Woody]

Thanks Ed................

[Carl Thunberg]

It took me a while to catch up to this thread. Adding to what Ed said, as a general rule of thumb, if the finish you are about to apply is expected to have a longer life than the finish you're putting it ON, then you need to sand/bleach down to bare wood again. This applies to all finishes, except maybe teak oil. It's not unique to Cetol.