Seeking experience of Owatrol Textrol or Osmo Natural Oil Woodstain on Cedar

[pedr0]

My cedar for my fence is arriving on Friday. It going to be the horizontal slatted type of fence with slats of about 44mm x 19mm. Something like this:



I want to treat it so that it doesn't silver.

I've been told by Osmo tech support that it's the pigments in the woodstain that really block the UV, so they recommend using the Red Cedar 728 stain as opposed to the clear 420 UV protection (despite the naming ).

I assume the same is true for the textrol - so would probably use the cedar tone textrol.

I've just got a sample of the Osmo 728 and it does alter the colour on the tiny sample of cedar that I've got, but I figure better that than constantly try to battle the silvering.

Does anyone have any experience or advice?

 

[pedr0]

Just spoke to Owatrol. They have two options:
Option 1) apply Owatrol Seasonite now (which protects the wood from warping, splitting etc during the first year), then let the wood weather for a year, then clean with Owatrol Net-Trol to remove any silvering, then apply Owatrol Textrol, which is designed for seasoned wood. Then every two years, clean again with Net trol and apply more textrol.

Option 2) Sand with 80 or 60 grit to remove the mill glaze. Then clean with meths. Then apply Textrol HES, which is designed for new wood.

Interestingly the Owatrol guy had put in his own cedar fence last year. And he went with option 1.

*Edit: And he also backed up the pigment theory. He said that the Textrol clear 'wouldn't not protect it from UV because it does have UV protection in there', but that Textrol a colour is better because then the sun not only has to break down the oil, but also the colour pigment. Essentially, the coloured stuff will give a bit more time before you have to reapply.

I'm still interested in anyone's experience with these products though, so please let me know.