Working with wood sealant can produce the most aesthetically pleasing results. Choosing the best sealant for wood will help you keep the wood around your home looking great, even as it begins to wear down and crack with age.
Wood is a material prone to cracking and breaking as it ages, no matter how well you’ve finished and protected it. This is when wood sealant becomes your best ally. With a good wood sealant, you can fix these breaks or fill in the gaps to restore your wooden objects back to their original condition.
Using wood sealant around a wooden door or window frame? Here’s how to proceed.
1. Clean. For an optimal seal, ensure the area you are working with is clean and clear of any foreign objects, such as dust or debris.
2. Prepare. For the best, safest results, ensure the area you are working is well-ventilated, and use gloves while applying the wood sealant.
3. Prime. Almost all wood sealant products come with an applicator nozzle, which you attach to the main tube after removing the cap and inner seal. Establish the bead size you wish to apply and cut the top of the nozzle to match that measurement.
4. Apply. Load your clear sealant for wood into a sealant gun and squeeze the trigger gently to apply a consistent bead into the joint or gap you are working with.
5. Profile. Before the bead has dried, use a smoothing tool like the UniBond Sealant Smoother Tool to smooth it over and force it into the joint or gap to form the best seal possible. This will also remove any excess wood sealant, which can be scraped off in stages while smoothing the bead over.
6. Dry. Once the bead is smooth and in place in the joint or gap, leave it dry as per instructions on the product.
If you’re fixing a wooden object or building outside, here’s how to apply exterior wood sealant as an adhesive.
- Sand. Use fine sandpaper to lightly roughen the wooden surfaces you are working with and achieve the strongest bond possible. Clean up and brush away any dust that this produces.
- Apply. Load your outdoor sealant for wood into a sealant gun and squeeze the trigger gently to apply a consistent bead to one of the surfaces you are bonding.
- Dry. Press that surface against the other and hold until an initial bond is formed.
Before you choose your wood sealant, you need to consider what scenario you are using it for. If you need to fill in gaps around a window or door frame inside your home, a product like UniBond Fill & Repair Indoor Sealant would be best. This is a paintable sealant for wood, so you can redecorate it to match the room’s colour.
If you want to seal gaps around a window or door frame outside your home, UniBond Window & Door Frame Sealant is a weatherproof silicone wood sealant that provides a permanently flexible perimeter seal and offers strong and lasting adhesion to wood.
Should you need to use clear sealant for wood as an adhesive, UniBond Repair Epoxy Wood is a two-part water resistant epoxy adhesive that dries translucent and sets in 5 minutes. It is ideal for strong quick bonding and repairing of almost all soft and hard woods and can be sanded, drilled and painted.
