Sapele Wood For Outdoor Use

Some make use of recycled material but all are rotproof.

Sapele wood for outdoor use.

I do not want to paint it but rather leave the natural wood finish. Sharing the same botanical family as american and african mahogany sapele is an attractive wood with satisfactory working characteristics and an economical price point that should entice. Instead if you want to color the wood use this simple process. Composites have no defects and do not compress like wood.

Later today i will use wood filler to repair where i ve had to remove rotten wood. Because the wood was in such bad shape and i didn t want a high gloss finish two additional products were added to the lineup. Sapele is a hardwood from tropical africa that successfully emulates the characteristics that have made mahogany so popular. This strips the tannins from the wood opening up the surface to fully accept a stain.

This density poses special problems for fastening and movement. The stain will actually reduce the shimmer in the ribbon figure making it dull because it mainly stays on top of the wood. In short the goal is to use epoxy to seal the wood fibers and essentially make them impervious to liquids. Because it will be used in exterior drying is not an issue.

Utile or sipo is a kissing cousin of sapele same genus same properties roughly. A lot of timber is chemically treated to prevent rot but some woods have superior natural rot resistance and can be used outdoors without chemical treatment. Wood plastic composites wpcs are made from thermoplastic resins wood flour and wood fiber. Choosing the right wood for outdoor projects natural wood is a great choice for adding warmth and texture to your garden.

Sapele wood is of medium hardness with a janka rating of 1510 lbs making is harder than most domestic north american species and almost twice as hard as genuine mahogany. Any recommendations the wood is quite exposed. The stain varnish applied to your sapele may be blistering because it was never treated with a stripper prior to applying the stain. Sapele mahogany should be cleaned with a trisodium phosphate solution before applying any stain.

Sapele does have very good insect and decay resistance heartwood not sapwood. The finish is a 1 2 punch consisting of an epoxy sealer and a marine varnish. I guess that i ll need to use a varnish type of finish rather than an oil because of the use of filler. Same as mahogany exploitation of sapele forests are regulated by several countries across africa.

To add color to sapele with a stain you don t want to apply an oil pigment stain straight to the raw wood. With supplies of north american mahogany dwindling more woodworkers are turning to sapele as a substitute wood for use in furniture and musical instruments. It is made from sapele hardwood.