? on Restoring Color to Recently Cleaned Covered Mahogany Porch/Deck Flooring

[rprescot]

Our 15-16 year old covered mahogany deck (which has been resanded twice in its lifetime) was recently power washed. Even before it was washed, and even though it's covered, the wood had turned gray and lost its nice red color. (Except for the wood under the pad upon which the grill stands.)

It needs to have a "finish". I've researched this on the internet and the number of suggestions, many of them contradictory, is quite large.

Is there an oil, or other non-stain containing material, that will not only preserve and revitalize the wood BUT ALSO restore the red color? For instance, will "oiling" the wood bring out the red?

I know nothing about wood, carpentry, etc. My question boils down to: once it's faded by the elements and power washed is the mahogany red color restorable by any other means other than staining? (We don't want to sand the floor, if we can help it.)

If staining is the only option, then what would folks recommend? An oil containing a stain? A stain-only product?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[Cheese]

My experience is with finishing teak and not mahogany, although that may change soon as I have several mahogany mounting blocks that will need to refinished to regain the auburn color.

For teak, once the teak is cleaned, it still needs to be lightly sanded to bring back the golden color. If you don't sand it the color remains a dull gray/brown.

For your situation, I'd find a small area that's hidden and lightly sand the area with some 180 paper. That should answer your initial question. The more difficult question is what to apply to preserve the color for more than just a couple of years. The deck, being a horizontal surface, needs a coating that has some fungicides contained in it.

A light pigmented stain will also help in retarding the effects of UV light. Again for teak, when using oil, I'm only getting about 2 years of color retention before the color starts to gray. For teak I've settled on a combination of stain for some surfaces and oil for other surfaces. It really depends upon the amount of sunlight and water the surface is subjected to.

Here's a photo of the mahogany blocks I was referring to earlier. The block was initially coated with 3 coats of clear poly but you can clearly see the difference in color between the flat exposed surface and the hidden surfaces, it's seen about 3 years of outdoor service. The 3rd photo is of the mahogany blocks after the clear poly was applied back in 2021.

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