Ready Seal 512 5-Gallon Pail Natural Cedar Exterior Stain and Sealer for Wood

Staining a fence is a significant decision because fences are expensive and stain is permanent. I recently installed a 8’, 300 foot new cedar fence with treated pine posts. For staining purposes, that means 600 feet of surface to cover. After waiting a couple months for it to season and the moisture content of the wood to fall well below recommended 12%, (mine was about 5% according to the Kline meter-also great Amazon purchase), I was ready to stain/seal my new fence.The world of fence staining is competitive marketplace. Lots of products, reviews, theories, pitfalls, etc. and the quality and durability of those products seems to have a wide variety of success and failure. Again, failure is not an option for $25,000+ investment, nor is not protecting the fence by not sealing/staining it. Here is why I chose Ready Seal:Laytex vs. Oil based. My experience has always been that oil based products last, and penetrate better than laytex. But, oil is messy and has a higher VOC (smell). I wanted the product to penetrate the wood as deeply as possible. Oil does that better. Ready Seal does that very well.Ready Seal is advertised as “Goof Proof” and it truly is. The “goof” they are talking about is having runs and streaks in your fence, which again is a permanent problem. To avoid this problem, Ready Seal soaks into the wood pretty slowly, it is essentially dry to the touch after an hour, and it continues to soak in over the next few days.The key selling point for me, however, was the ability to re-apply the product as needs without any streaking for the life of the fence, without any need to strip it, etc. In this regard, a fence is like a sponge, it soaks up Ready Seal, and it can be “added to” over time. That is really a useful aspect, that saves a lot of time, money and effort, and allows one to selectively protect your fence over its lifetime.I used a low pressure, 15 gallon, electric garden sprayer made by Velore (on Amazon) to apply the Ready Seal. It worked extremely well for this application. [I removed the filter on the intake hose because of the pigment would clog the filter] You do two coats of Ready Seal, but the majority of the soaking in occurs on the first coat. I’d say it’s about 70/30 in that regard. On my fence, I used 50 gallons of Ready Seal. Read all the instructions and prep. No sealer/stain will work if the surface is dirty and the product cannot soak in.They don’t have a lot of color selection is one downside. I went with Light Oak #505 on a cedar/treated pine posts fence. Ready Seal will send you samples to try out. (The samples are tiny, you might want 2-3 of the packs) Their cedar color was too red for my taste when put on top of an already cedar fence. It’s a personal choice at that point, but the pigment/color is necessary to help block damage causing, UV light.Last, the folks at Ready Seal were extremely helpful. There are not many companies these days where you can call in the middle of a project and get an answer from a human being—-especially a person who is familiar with the product, applying it, etc. Much thanks to Ready Seal folks for being so available and so helpful at answering questions.I have no regrets on using this product, it looks great, easy to apply, works as advertised, and is well supported by a reputable company and staff located in the USA. I highly recommend it. Darrin D, Memphis TN.

This is the only outdoor wood sealer I will use! Excellent value and quality. I love the look of the color, nice and natural and not too bright. It dries very quick and lasts all season. Easy to apply with a paintbrush. My husband considered applying it with a spray gun but a paintbrush is much more efficient.

I used the natural cedar in an electric sprayer. My deck is new fresh sawn larch (tamarack) and 20 year old pressure treated pine. I followed the instructions bleached the whole deck let it dry for half the summer. Moisture meter got down to 15-18%% on all of it. Not ideal. I sprayed on a 5 gallon pail it soaked into the old wood and disappeared instantly. It mostly sat on top of the new wood. I used some old towels and simply rubbed the stain all over the deck. Old school staining techniques.The stain dried where you didn't get any color on your socks in a few hours. It appears oily if that's an accurate word a month later. Water beads up on it. The rough sawn larch looks like it does when wet which is the color I wanted. Couldn't be happier. The older wood didn't change color much if at all. So be aware this stuff is not paint. It's simply an oil stain.The instructions are clear about the moisture. My deck was too wet to stain but mopping it on worked with no residue. I didn't want the deck to sit exposed all winter with no oil on it. I didn't apply a 2nd coat there's no way.Overall I'm very happy with the color and how it went on. No streaks . I strongly recommend a sprayer I was able to paint my whole deck including the railings both sides and get cleaned up in about 4 hours. Not happing in a whole weekend with a brush. The deck is about 3200 sq/ft floor area, plus all the railings and raised beds. Because it didn't really soak in I used 10 gallons it covered it all. The dryer sections took more.Because it's easy to use and dries fast, plan on reapplying every year and you won't be disappointed. No stain lasts forever.