I have been in the General Contracting business, specializing in historic
restoration stuff, now for 40 years. I do a LOT of repair and much consideration
goes in to keeping wood nice, with minimal maintenance, .... which leads
straight to paints and stains. I tell my clients to always use low body oil stains,
whenever possible, and plan on guaranteed problems and maintenance with
even the best of paints.
Wood and water = expansion. This breaks paint skin surfaces, allowing more
water in and the peeling and wood breakdown process begins. Add movement
stresses of cars in use, and the problems are only multiplied. Now, this sounds
overly dramatic, and the way most old car people care for their cars, it's not like
they are left out in the weather much, but the theory still applies.
I refuse to paint clients' decks, porches, and fences, unless they sign a waiver,
and highly discourage such painting, because it goes to hell in short order, and
the fix is involved and expensive. Oil stains like what were used in 1900 are the
only way to go.
When I got my wheels back from Stutzman, I got an oil stain and dumped a ton
of black colorant into it, thinned it very thin, and gave the wheels a coat, let dry,
mixed a second batch that was not as thinned, and did it again. I repeated the
process 4 times, each time making it less thin. You want the early coats real thin
for maximum depth of penetration, but as the oils dry in the wood pores, they build
up IN the wood as a moisture repellant, much as an oil soaked rag will not sop up
any water. With each thicker coat, the oils build up, but do not create a skin,
thereby repelling the water, but having no surface "skin" to crack and peel. It
is not how Henry did it, but I am maintaining my truck as a farm truck, and as
you can see, the wheels look perfectly "down on the farm" with this treatment,
and are largely bulletproof to water, and will never crack or peel, because there
is nothing there to crack and peel. And the other great thing about this is, at any
point that I want to freshen up the stain, I just go over it again. There is no skin,
so if the wood CAN absorb more oil, it will do so without any surface obstruction.
Just my .02, based on my own "farm" experience and years of working with wood
and paint/stain finishes.
