DEFY Extreme 1 Gallon Semi-Transparent Exterior Wood Stain, Redwood

This is a great semi-transparent wood stain for my outdoor cedar furniture. It goes on smoothly, nicely shows the wood grain, and has nice redwood coloring.

Easy to apply. Deck was all sanded evenly with 80 grit. Same type pine wood boards. Few years aged deck. However even though i mixed before refilling pant tray for next few boards, when i got to end the color was more orange/cedar. So my deck is not uniform color. It beads water though so it's working at least.

We restained our large (800sq ft) deck with this, and also stained a new deck box I built for our chair cushions.PROS:Goes on easy (but you must work fast... it dries very quickly and you can't apply the recommended and needed 2nd coat once it's dry). As directed, do NOT stop in the middle of a board. The line will show. Keep going to the end of each board and avoid splashes. They'll show too. Not a product for a careless worker if you want a good looking result.Looks beautiful... a huge improvement over the boring, dark stain the previous homeowners used (which we removed diligently and completely, using the products and methods recommended/sold by Defy). Also looks great on the new wood I made the deck box from.CONS:This stain DOES NOT LAST. We did our deck three years ago and the cushion box two years ago. They NEED A NEW COAT (or two) EVERY YEAR. Even the deck box needs a yearly re-coat, despite sittting in the garage all winter, protected from snow and ice.Unless you're prepared for this level of maintenance effort, consider shopping around for something more durable (not easy to find in these VOC-free days).

A wonderful product, but instructions specify that you'll probably need to lay down a second coat before the first coat is completely dry--so you really can't wait to buy extra stain in case you run out in the middle of the second coat. We followed the coverage estimates carefully, but ended up with twice as much stain (an extra gallon) as we needed. That's annoying and wasteful.

I love how this stain converts the old presser treated wood to something awesome. I had to put on several coats. My deck wood was only about 1 1/2 old but catches the sun all day long, and it just laughed at the first coat. I ended up putting 4 coats on mine until I had it were it should be. You have to force feed the stain into the wood. If you let it settle overnight the stain will seal the wood and you really have to work on it then. Guess how I know