Deks Olje 1 & 2

Preparation, Application & Maintenance By Thomas A. & Nannette M. MacNaughton

(revised 05/23/2010 Copyright 2010)

eks Olje consists of two materials used in succession. Deks Olje #1 is a thin penetrating oil which can completely saturate a piece of wood as described below. No brushing technique or other sensitive application methods are required. This stabilizes the wood and protects it from rot and weathering effects. In areas of high abrasion this may be the only part you use. In all other areas Deks Olje #1 is covered with several coats of Deks Olje #2 to give a very smooth shiny surface similar to varnish. Deks Olje #2 also goes on thin and does not require fancy technique. Why Deks Olje? There are a number of significant advantages to a Dek Olje finish over either a conventional varnish finish or bare wood if you want a natural finish: Ease of Application & Maintenance: There is no brushing technique to learn and no special brushes are needed for a top appearance. Maintenance is far quicker, far faster, and requires no technique when compared with other brightwork systems. Not Sensitive to Marginal Conditions: If it isnt raining or likely to rain soon, theres no reason not to apply Deks Olje. As long as the surface isnt wet when you start and the rain doesnt start before the Deks Olje #1 sinks into the wood or the Deks Oje #2 dries it will be perfect. If the Deks Olje #2 gets wet before it dries it may blush but normally this will disappear after a few hours in the sun and if not a light sanding with fine grit will remove it. Good for the Wood: Deks Olje is actively good for the wood. Because Deks Olje #1 saturates the wood with oils it is almost impossible for it to rot and quite difficult for it to check. Deks Olje #2 protects the wood from dirt and other contaminants. Works on Oily Woods: A number of finishes dont work well on oily woods but the only difference an oily wood will make to Deks Olje is that youll use less of the deep penetrating #1. Safe: The only strong safety precaution you need with Deks Olje is that if you are going to use it inside the yacht or inside a building you must be sure you have plenty of ventilation just as you would with varnish. The solvents in either of these could injure your central nervous system if you dont remove the vapors from your area. Deks Olje is much safer than two part polyurethane varnish, which contains volatile cyanide compounds and in our opinion should never be used by the amateur. Works on the Poorly Bedded Wood on Fiberglass Boats: This is one of the best features of Deks Olje. In the 1950s it was taken for granted that good varnish jobs would perform well and were not a problem to do properly. To our consternation we gradually heard more and more people describe varnish as difficult to keep on the wood, often with the added statement that teak was so hard to varnish that it was better left bare. It was not until we were running a boat yard of our own, in which there were a large number of fiberglass boats, that we came to understand what the problem was. We did a really beautiful varnish job on a 36 foot fiberglass boat only to have it peel. We were astounded 1

and told the owner we would redo it for free. We carefully stripped the wood and tried a special preparation involving coatings that were touted as extremely adhesive only to have it peel again. Finally we realized that unlike the wooden boats we were used to, where failure to thoroughly bed all the trim would have guaranteed rot, fiberglass boat builders, being under heavy pressure to build boats inexpensively, would use only a few ribbons of bedding rather than a full layer insulating the wood from the fiberglass. Thus moisture was getting under the trim pieces and being absorbed by them. In the hot sun this could then vaporize and force the varnish off the surface. Extremely adhesive coatings would simply take a thin layer of the wood with them! Since Deks Olje #1 saturates the wood with oils, water vapor doesnt work its way up through the wood in the same way and the Deks Olje #2 will therefore stick thoroughly to the wood even though it is poorly bedded. This is not to say that it is not possible to use conventional varnish but for it to work you need to completely remove the wood trim and thoroughly re-bed it in something like 3M 101 polysulfide. No half measures will work. With more exotic coatings you may need to epoxy coat the wood as well as re-bed it. None of this is necessary with Deks Olje. By the way if you ever find someone who does not like Deks Olje, normally you will find that they did not understand or did not follow the simple rules for its proper application. Considering the simplicity of the process this might seem hard to believe but nevertheless it is true! Deks Olje as A Matte Finish or A Gloss Finish Generally speaking Deks Olje #1 saturates and stabilizes the wood and provides stable base for the high gloss number two which provides an easily cleaned and protective surface. Nevertheless there are times when you would use only Deks Olje #1 to saturate and stabilize the wood and prevent rot, but do not want a high gloss surface. Primarily this will be on horizontal areas, and other items which will receive a lot of wear or need a nonskid surface. For items under foot where traction is important we use just enough so a new coat every month or so will continue to be absorbed. For items that wont be walked on yet would be scratched up easily, we totally saturate the wood until it wont absorb any more and then polish off any excess. A hand grip done like this wont absorb dirt from your hands, and it will take a nice natural polish from being handled all the time. Having been done like this once, an interior item will need at most cleaning with soap and water, and another coat, once a year. Bleaching When applying Deks Olje to old wood which has been left bare or which was previously painted, you may need to bleach the wood. Over the years we tried many bleachs, most of which were too harsh or had other problems. Eventually we found that the best way to bleach was to use a dilute oxalic acid solution. Nevertheless there is a trick to getting the very best out of the minimum bleaching with oxalic acid. That is to suspend it in a diluted detergent solution instead of just water. This makes the cleaning and bleaching action more even and helps carry away the dirty residue more easily.

Preparation To prepare a wood surface for Deks Olje all paint and varnish should be removed. If the surface was previously painted, make sure every bit of paint is removed from the grain. An ordinary hardware store heat gun is normally the best stripping tool. If you must work close to a painted surface you dont want to disturb, cover it with aluminum foil or 3Ms green masking tape. For scraping off the loosened paint use an ordinary putty knife with the most flexible possible blade. First file the end of the blade square with an ordinary flat file. Then use a rod of hard steel or stainless steel to rub back and forth along this edge with the blade in a vise, keeping it square to the edge. This turns the edge into a fine hook just as on a cabinet scraper. This allows you to be quite vigorous in scraping off the loosened paint without worrying about gouging the wood. Once all traces of the old finish are removed clean and bleach the wood. This is especially important if the wood has been left bare. Use a soapy suspension of oxalic acid. A solution can be made up before hand of a mild detergent and oxalic acid which can then be diluted just before use. Perform this bleaching operation twice to ensure even color. On large flat or near flat areas finish off the surface by scraping with the grain using a standard hand held cabinet scraper. This is sharpened as described above, though used at a different angle. This smoothes and somewhat polishes the wood in a way that sandpaper cannot. When the wood is then Deks Oljed you then have the maximum of natural highlights and the maximum change in highlights as you view the wood from different angles. This makes the wood seem alive and deep in a way that cant be duplicated by any reproduction of wood grain, or staining of one species of wood to make it look like another. Never stain the wood. It will look best with its natural color, the very slight warmth in color provided by the Deks Olje itself, plus the natural patina that the wood acquires under the Deks Olje by the gradual action of ultraviolet light. This is why violin makers age their instruments under ultraviolet light to give them a richness which is otherwise not possible to obtain on a new instrument. Application Deks Olje #1 is now applied as it comes from the can working around the surface just as fast as you can using an inexpensive brush or a foam applicator. You can use about anything as long as a brushing action is used. All you are doing is dampening the surface with each application. You arent trying to put it on thick and the only thing you have to think about is to not put so much on that it runs off vertical surfaces. Do this in logical sections rather than an entire boat at once. As you finish a section you should be able to look back and see that the first part that you have done has been absorbed by the wood leaving a matt surface. Go immediately back and apply more. Do not wait for it to dry. Do not sand between coats. Continue to apply as many coats as the wood will take, wet on wet. It will gradually take longer and longer for the Deks Olje #1 to be absorbed and you will gradually have to wait longer before applying the next coat. When the time stretches to the point that it is taking 6 hours before enough has been absorbed to allow another coat, the wood has been saturated. At that point take a lint free cotton cloth and rub the surface briskly to remove any excess oil. Let the surface sit for three full 24 hour periods before continuing with Deks Olje #2. We should mention at this point that the wood may well take an extraordinary volume of Deks Olje #1 the first time you do this. However the wood is then filled with

the oil and will never have to have anything like this much Deks Olje #1 applied to it ever again. This is the only time when you will put significant labor into a Deks Oljed surface. As an example we sold our beloved Charis in the early 1980s and the new owner painted over the Deks Oljed cabin trunk. When we bought her back about 15 years later and stripped this paint to put back the Deks Olje we found it took much less Deks Olje #1 because so much of it remained in the wood. After the #1 has set for three days apply your first coat of Deks Olje #2. Before starting look for any insects, dirt specs, or paint chips that have stuck to the #1 and use a little strip of masking tape to lift them off the surface. Deks Olje #2 is also applied with any brush or foam brush and is also applied with no particular technique as fast as you can just dampen the surface without applying so much that it runs off the vertical surfaces. Allow 24 hours between coats. Apply 6 coats, but no more than 6 coats. Many people assume that if six coats is good more would be better but this is not true with this material. You may sand with very fine sand paper very lightly between the last two coats. If the wood was not perfectly smooth when you started this process you may find the surface though very glossy and even wet looking has a slight texture to it from the grain in the wood. When you apply maintenance coats over time, as described below, these tiny irregularities will gradually fill in and the surface will get smoother and smoother until it has a near mirror finish. Perhaps it would be possible to accelerate this process by applying maintenance coats more frequently, but Deks Olje looks so beautiful anyway that we have never had any desire to try this. Maintenance If damage or abrasion cuts through the Deks Olje #2 during the season, apply however much Deks Olje #1 it looks like the surface will take, let it set for three days, and touch up with 6 coats of Deks Olje #2 waiting 24 hours between each coat. Unlike varnish this will blend quite well and there is no need to redo the whole surface. Every year you should clean the Deks Oljed surfaces with mild soap and water, let it dry thoroughly, and touch up any worn spots as described above. Then you should sand the surface very lightly with very fine sand paper and apply two coats of Deks Olje #2, sanding very lightly between coats if desired. In the tropics it may be necessary to do this maintenance routine more often. If you notice the Deks Olje #2 has lost some of its gloss or wet look, you probably should have done your maintenance work well before that point and should adjust your maintenance schedule accordingly. In Conclusion The bottom line is that no finish is as good for wood as Deks Olje and none, including paint, is as easy to maintain. Being transparent nothing bad can happen behind the finish without you knowing about it. Deks Olje is a favorite of cruising yachtsmen because of its great ease of maintenance. It provides a very high degree of finish for a minimum of effort. Nannette suggests writing the essential points of this article on an index card and keeping it with your Deks Olje supplies. Sources

Deks Olje used to be manufactured and distributed in the United States by The Flood Company. When Flood was acquired and dropped their marine products, it became necessary to find sources from other licensees of the owners of the formula outside of the United States. You can get Deks Olje sent to you in the United States from www.igoe.ie We also have found a licensee in Spain at www.owatrol.com We are sure that at some point a new licensee will be established in the United States. Most recently we have found that it is being stocked by www.hamiltonmarine.com in Searsport, Maine. At the present time Hamilton Marine, which is a very fine outfit, is by far the best way for those of us in North America to buy Deks Olje. For additional assistance email friends@macnaughtongroup.com For other publications, design work, educational opportunities, etc. see www.macnaughtongroup.com