Teak furniture

Overview

We got a new teak patio set from Uchi House in Berkeley . A week after the furniture arrived i noticed two large cracks. I called Uchi House and they offered to replace the damaged furniture but i would have to wait two months for the new ones to arrive from Indonesia. Or they said I could try to fix it with some epoxy and they would give me 50% off. I took the discount and attempted to repair the cracks. Then I will apply a wood sealer to the teak. Special thanks to the Uchi House staff member, Tom, who drove out from Berkeley to Walnut Creek to give me the sawdust and some sandpaper and showed me how to do the repair.

Materials

• teak sawdust

• 150 sandpaper and holder

• Danish Teak Sealer

• ClearWeld Quick-Setting Epoxy (clear)

• gloves and brush

Repair the crack

First sand the area with 150 sand paper. Make sure the surface is clean.

Prepare the epoxy, by mixing the epoxy with the sawdust. The epoxy is clear and the sawdust is suppose to hide the crack. The mixture was really dark. Too dark. I kind of panicked because the epoxy cures quickly. In my haste I put in way too much sawdust.

Apply the sawdust epoxy mixture to the crack. I used toothpick to try to work the glue deep into the crack.

I waited a few hours for the epoxy to dry. Then I sanded the area with 150 sand paper along the grain. You can still see the crack as a dark line. If I had used less sawdust maybe it wouldn’t be a dark line. But it may look better after the sealer.

Which teak sealer to buy

There is teak oil and teak sealer. I decided on the Danish teak sealer because it packaging says it is for boat decks. It protects against water and UV.

Applying the teak sealer

Wash the teak with water and let it dry for 24 hours. There were water stains from a previous rain, so i spent time sanding those away.

I applied a coat of the sealer and then let dry for one day. Then I applied the next coat. I worked in the mornings when the sun wasn’t baking me and the wood.

The original unfinished teak color is nice as well. Eventually the natural look becomes a weathered grey finish if no product is applied. And some people prefer that. I prefer the more darker oiled look, like what you see on the deck of a nice sail boat. Regardless the color, the teak stays strong in wind, rain, sun.

Make sure to wipe off the excess oil after each coat. If you don’t it will quickly harden into ugly oil stains.

For the surfaces that will be exposed to water and sun and dog pee I applied three coats. For the surfaces that are not exposed to the sun and rain, like the bottom I applied two coats.

The one quart can was enough for the sofa, coffee table, round side table and two chairs.

The outdoor cushions are from home depot for $80 each set. Only the bottom cushion is pictured above, but there is also a back cushion in each set. Custom-made Sunbrella cushions would cost almost as much as the furniture itself, over a thousand dollars.

Maintenance