Why opt for factory finished wood? Because it results in a finish that is both better-looking and better-performing. There are numerous advantages to having your decking or cladding prefinished or finished in the factory. In addition to saving a ton of money and effort, prefinished wood cladding simply looks better. This is significantly more relevant when discussing external wood products.
Here are some key reasons to have all of your siding, trim, and decking factory finished. We can guarantee you’ll be amazed at how much hassle, time and even cost you can potentially save on your project when you opt for the prefinishing route.
Save Both Time & Space
A factory-applied finish on natural wood means your wood products come delivered to your project site out-of-the-box, ready-to-install. Projects during the chilly winter months will especially benefit from factory finishing. For on-site finishing, warmer temperatures are usually necessary to help ensure that the finish cures correctly.
Finish manufacturers will usually inform you that temperatures lower than 60 degrees Fahrenheit are prone to causing issues with finishes properly drying. Additionally, finish manufacturers will advise you to apply finish when rain is not in the forecast for at least a few hours before and after spraying and to avoid finishing in bright sunshine. Don’t forget about dealing with all the nuisance dust which the wind inevitably stirs up and deposits, giving your curing finish that unwanted texture.
Let’s now discuss space. You’ll need to arrange a herd of saw horses in order to lay out every board so you can brush, spray or roll on the finish during your ideal weather window (which might end any moment). Then, while this finish dries, all further work on the job site that could generate dust needs to be on hold.
Because factory finishing allows the professional finishers at J. Gibson McIlvain to operate year-round regardless of temperature, we’re able to eliminate these variables in order to produce a uniformly finished product that you can then install without the hassle which on-site finishing entails.
No Need for Additional Specialized Labor
Wood finishing is a challenging process which takes a lot of skill, and if the finishing is done poorly, it can result in a lot of unnecessary expense. The intricate process of applying a finish, adapting to various types of finishes, and understanding the nuances of a wide range of wood species is a task unto itself. For this reason, a lot of carpenters and woodworkers have their finishing handled by a trained finishing team. Now that a team has been assigned to finish the wood at your project, the rest of your construction crew has to put a pause on their productivity so as not to stir up dust or otherwise interfere with the on-site finishing until that is completed.
You can save that extra expense and cross off that job task from the daily work plan by choosing instead to go with a factory applied finish.
Finishing is a skill, and it’s also expensive. It’s difficult to locate good help. Because most competent finishers actually avoid on-the-job-site-finishing, it is even harder today to find knowledgeable and experienced finishers to do the work at the actual job site. Variations in application tools or procedures will inevitably result in an uneven appearance if the on-site work is completed by a variety of people over the course of different days.
It is challenging to determine how much finish will be required for finishing the project because of these variations. Your project timeline may be in jeopardy due to delays in finishing, particularly if the work site is located in a remote or challenging-to-access location. On top of all of this, badly applied finish is difficult to remove, so if serious mistakes are made, you may need to have additional wood in order to replace what got damaged.
Smooth Application & High Quality Finishes
We have a whole building at the J Gibson McIlvain facility devoted to wood finishing applications. Our machines are engineered to apply specific finishes precisely and react instantly when a particular species of wood absorbs finish in a different way. Our team of finish professionals operates this equipment and makes necessary modifications as the product is being finished.
Even the finest finisher cannot match the uniformity of a machine-applied finish; however, years of active machine monitoring knowledge in conjunction with professional finishing experience provides you the best of both worlds.
In addition, because of the amount of material we finish, we have in-depth knowledge of both new coatings methods and finishing supplies/equipment that are recently available on the market. In the area of coatings, nano tech is very real, and keeping up with these new products is crucial. We strive to always update our offerings with the latest in finishing methodologies, products, processes and applications; just because we used a particular varnish last year doesn’t guarantee that it is still the best choice this year.
Quality Finishing on All Sides
It’s crucial to apply things consistently. A finishing layer applied too thickly may cause problems with drying and appearance. The opposite is also true. Additionally, uniformity in the finishing applied across the entire wood’s surface is crucial for a quality output product. Finish, whether water or oil-based, adds a lot of moisture to the wood, causing the wood to swell. Unpredictable movement will occur if the finish is not applied uniformly or to the entire face of the wood. If there is an uneven coat thickness, this wood movement can then occur even weeks after the finish has dried. Finishing four sides of a board evenly and correctly while on a construction site is a very complicated task.
Most machines in a wood finishing factory can apply the finish to all sides of the wood simultaneously. If this is not feasible, then we ensure that every coat on each side is done with precisely the same thickness and composition to ensure even moisture absorption from side to side and from end to end.
High Volume = Bulk Savings
We are able to purchase materials in greater quantities and can then pass those bulk savings along to you because of the volume of finishing we perform. More significantly, though, we keep a large inventory on hand so that you won’t usually have to worry about waiting for finishes or raw lumber shipments to arrive at our facility. We keep all of our goods in climate-controlled storage facilities so they are always prepared for use.
We utilize the best quality colors and pigments, which are also carefully blended to guarantee that the pale blue color used six months ago is still the same hue now. You may be shocked to see how varied an “identical” finish on wood can be when purchasing off-the-shelf items at a typical hardware & wood supply retail store just months apart.
Advice from Experienced Wood Finishers
Let’s remember what we are working with and its inherent complexities. Wood is made of organic materials. Every species is unique, and even within a species, the finishing requirements will vary from one board to the next board. With precision machinery, a controlled atmosphere, and knowledgeable personnel supervising everything, we can make adjustments during a run to ensure optimal board appearance.
Occasionally a job arises when we are aware of the best finish to employ for that specific species in advance, allowing us to advise our customers on how to produce a higher-performing product. Not all finishes will work well for all types of wood species or for all applications, whether in interior use or exterior use. Our experienced wood finishers can advise based on scenarios & combinations which we are familiar with that have performed well or poorly.
High-Tech Finish Drying & Curing
Weather variations on the job site have the potential to spoil a finish or lead it to fail prematurely. A typical container of finish will provide information on drying and curing times if you read the fine print. Note that these figures may differ significantly. The weather can also immensely alter how long it takes for finish to dry and cure, which can throw your project an unexpected curve ball if you are trying to do your finishing while on the job site.
Our professional finishers take fastidious care with the drying and curing process for the wood we finish at our factory. To ensure uniform air movement across all parts of each board, our finishing area is equipped with many drying racks. Our drying room, however, is truly revolutionary as it not only expedites the drying process but also the cure time in a carefully regulated, high tech way.
Additionally, by going through the full wood drying and curing process, any modifications to the wood, like end checking or movement, can often be fixed by our staff before the wood is shipped to you. This helps to remove uneven boards and end trimming tasks from the job site.
In-Line Sanding Before Finishing
Sanding the wood surface to give it some “tooth” is usually necessary to help most finishes adhere to it. Lumber that has been freshly cut will oftentimes have a condition called mill gloss. High-speed blades have the potential to burnish wood due to heat buildup, and this glazed surface can prevent a finish from being properly absorbed. Furthermore, once a finish is applied to wood in this condition, the knife marks which even the finest grade millwork leaves on the wood will be blatantly visible.
Sanding is therefore necessary to provide not just the best-looking finish but also the best absorption and adherence of your finish. With precise belt sanders positioned in line before with the finishing machines, what was once a tedious task of manually sanding each cladding or decking board on site can now be completed swiftly and with remarkable consistency in our finishing factory. The wood has greater depth and shine and the finish layer is more resilient since you are left with a smooth, level surface that is ready to absorb the finishing, as opposed to the normal dishing and swirl lines seen as evidence of hand sanding on site.
The ideal comparison of a finished object that has been sanded and left unsanded is seen above. Both samples received the same colored oil-based finish. The finish appears to have sunk into the wood’s rough marks on the left, while the sanded surface on the right produces a flawlessly smooth application that highlights the wood’s inherent patterns.
Color Uniformity
If you’ve ever worked with wood decking or cladding, you are aware of the inherent differences between boards. The color and grain pattern of boards will differ even though they belong to the same species; at times this appearance can even be unfavorable. Frequently customers request a “raw wood” appearance which would otherwise make these appearance variations stand out quite noticeably. Certain species of wood, however, will appear better with some color applied to the clear finish that is typically used. As the trees matured, a thousand natural variables caused color diversity and mineral staining, yet this small amount of added pigment to the surface of the boards may bring all of those color variations together into an even coloration yet still “raw wood” appearance.
One such species is Cumaru, which comes in two distinct red and yellow types. It is best used on larger projects like decks and houses. This is where finishing comes into play, as our selection of decking finishes can take care of the problem.
On Cumaru, a colored oil-based finish homogenizes the color and blends the red and yellow tones while maintaining the wood’s original appearance. The finish increases saturation and draws attention to the natural colors, creating a final appearance that is much more uniform and colorful. This treatment stabilizes and shields the wood from moisture in addition to blending the colors. For the smoothest application and greatest color blending results, this type of finish should be applied in a factory setting.
Ensure Even Weathering
No matter how high tech, nano-engineered, or artificial intelligence-guided your finish is, your exterior wood will still weather given enough time. You can decide to refinish your wood surface every year or two, or let it age to a silvery gray over time.
Should you want that worn-in appearance in the end, you might be shocked to learn that a factory prefinish is still a preferable choice. The graying process will be slowed, but compared to unfinished wood, it will be more consistent. Because of the even coating and stabilization that contemporary coatings offer, the prefinished wood cladding will age more gracefully and more evenly, with less of an awkward, spotty “young wood appearance” aspect.
In comparison to high exposure locations, northern exposure walls, eaves, and soffits won’t get as much exposure which can result with that wood surface keeping its “fresh” appearance longer; ultimately this can result in the wood appearance varying from one side of the building to the other side. A factory prefinish can effectively help minimize this gradual disjunction in appearance so the wood surface on all sides of the building evenly ages.
All of the aforementioned finish preparation steps, regular application in climate-controlled settings, and meticulous quality control will result in a far better weathering process when using a factory applied finish. Applying finishing consistently results in consistent weathering, whether it is eight months later or eight years later.
Pre Finishing = Greater Accuracy
It’s obvious that the best defense against the unpredictability of wood finishing is a factory finish. The highly variable nature of wood finishing is what drives up costs significantly. If finishing goes wrong on the job site, there are long delays and limited options for remedying the situation. Your mind will race with all the things that could (and will) go wrong and end up costing you more money when you include in the extra time, labor, and material expenses.
When purchasing millwork, it can be difficult to consider raising your millwork cost even higher per square foot or linear foot by choosing to add in factory finishing. However, even just adding 40–60% to the material cost by opting for factory finishing can result in significant savings down the road, and this is a cost which you can budget for up front today.
Even though we hope there won’t be any problems, you can contact us and we’ll take care of any factory-finished product difficulties you may have. Note that we are unable to assist you in correcting a finish that goes wrong in the field, and you will not be able to get a credit on the material supplied.
Are you trying to figure out how much extra money and lead time you should budget for your project? Request a quote right now, and let’s discuss your project.
Editor Note: A; C.
