, there is an old posting related to 'palochina' wood, you may want to check that thread. if i remember it correctly, if you buy the secondhand pallet wood by the roadside, these wood has already been treated when they were made into pallets. the marking will tell you as to the type of treatment that was use on the wood and the chemicals use. or you can just google it in the internet if you cannot find the old posting.

i think palochina wood is actually birch tree lumber and you can find them in large hardware store. i saw some of these type of woods at Citi Hardware here in Marbel, the products are all made in new zealand and they come in different sizes ... cheers

Boo!

Thank you so much Boo. I've bought second hand pallet planks and examined it. Didn't find any markings at all. What does it mean?

the markings will not be in all the planks of the pallet. you will normally see 1 or 2 markings (e.g. silkscreen with paint) in a complete pallet in one of it's area.
the shop where you bought the planks, did you see any complete pallet lying around that you can inspect? if not, then you could try and ask the owner if he/she knows about it 🙂 ...

from what i know, pallets needs to be treated when there are made. it's the law and the treatment prevents insects from being transported from one place to another ... cheers

Boo!

Thanks for all your help. Our project is coming along well. I've tried the oil mahogany stain but didn't like the strong odour and it doesn't give a dark color that's what i'm aiming for. Ended up using waterbased paint that turned out to be great.
My question now is how do i weather treat it? Is paint enough or do i have to put a top coat? Client wants it to be matte and not glossy. Any advise? I'm doing a sun lounger. TIA

there are polyurethane sealants in the market that are available in matt, i saw them in SG before and they should be available here in big depots. or you can also try a wax base type of sealant as a protection ... cheers

Boo!

Hi there. Pressure treated wood is totally different from the wood pallets you can buy on the roadside. Pressure treated have anti rot/termite all the way to the inside, like solignum forced into the wood fibers using pressure. You can buy those at your local hardware like wilcon/allhome/cwhome depot.

What paint did you use for the sun lounger? In the philippines, I think the best available locally for outdoor is spar varnish. Havent tried it yet but Ive researched it before. Polyurethane is also good. Not sure if you can coat spar varnish over waterbased paint though. Boysen has spar varnish on the big hardwares I mentioned. "Ace" brand also has one, check at ace hardware. Would be nice if the wood is still bare Id go for the spar varnish. If youve coated the lounger with waterbased paint, then just coat it with outdoor acrylic paint for finish

I did a little search, seems not a good idea to put oil base over water base for outdoor, they say the paint cracks or peels off.

its common sense...oil based for oil based and water based for water based...if there is a problem, there is something wrong with the chemistry...this is especially true if furnitures will be used outdoors..spar varnish is best to be applied singularly on the material and that is wood either bare wood or stained wood but not on painted wood.

@jeni,

use a satin waterbased polyurethane over any water based paints you have applied for the matte finish.
that "strong" odour coming off that Boysen oil based stain will go away in two days in dry season...then you apply the final clear finish.
if the stain is light then apply another one...but if you really like it to be dark instantly then use a Wenge stain...(not available from Boysen catalog iirc)...
The local distributor for the superlative european Deft paints and stains is Decopro.