Ready Seal 525 Exterior Stain and Sealer for Wood, 5-Gallon, Dark Walnut

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.

I have over 1,000 feet of rough cut cedar post and rail fence. It was installed 2 years ago, so it had a decent amount of weathering (i.e., grey coloring) on it. I followed Ready Seal's instructions and washed it with bleach/water mixture. Then used an oxalic acid mixture to clear the black staining (from the wood's reaction to the metal hardware). Lastly, I put two coats of stain on. I thought I was going to get away with a single coat, but the stain soaked in so deep that it was quite noticeable. The wood started to have almost a sickly look to it (not sure how else to explain it). Good news is that I know the stain soaked in really deep. :)The result is absolutely beautiful. I love this stain because it really soaks in. I actually stained a smaller portion of the fence that I build myself several years ago. While there was still the gray/weathering on it, it was noticeably different to clean/stain. It seemed like there was still a subsurface layer of sealant protecting the wood. Pretty cool. That being said, if I had just stained it when I first had it put in, I wouldn't have had to do the bleach or acid wash - which is a huge pain. I didn't do it originally because the price of a 5-gallon bucket of this stain went from $75 to $200. It was simply too much after spending $20K on the fence itself. I ended up purchasing 16 of them this summer for $174 each (yes, over $2700). Not much of a savings but a LOT more work. I had to get a bleach spray and an acid sprayer. I should have just stained it 2 years ago. I used a drill attachment to mix the stain and blend buckets, which made that part go much faster. Ready Seal recommended a pump sprayer for applying it, so I purchased one and used it. Once I learned how use it correctly, I think I was able to put the stain on with less waste then using a brush; however, given the sheer amount of fence I have, my left arm (pumping arm) was pretty wore out. I will look into to other solutions in the future. In the end I like the idea of not having to scrape/chip/strip paint off of my fence and just lightly wash and add another coat of stain next time. I highly recommend this product.

To prep , I used backpack sprayer and hit the fence with pool chlorinator from Walmart diluted to half strength, didn't bother with spraying off afterword as it was pretty much dry by the time I got done. That pretty much bleached everything back to like new, probably not great for wood but whatever. Was 3-4 weeks later by the time I got around to applying the stain. I flipped the cans over the night before and then stirred them pretty good that day. Used an airless sprayer for ease of application, was worth the time saving and ease of application despite knowing I'm sure I lost plenty to over spray. 10 gallons was just enough to do two coats, both sides of 150ft of fence about 6ft tall so whatever that comes out to mathematicians. It looks decent enough after the first coat and tried to talk myself out of putting second coat on which is what instructions say to do but as it only took about an hour or so to do I manned up and put the second coat on and glad I did, looks great so go ahead and talk yourself into like I did. I used the pecan finish and turned out great, can see the wood texture just fine and there were no orange tones which were my two biggest worries. Really fond of this product, definitely new go to on new wood.

Very nice stain and sealer for my wood fence. Sprayed it on easily with a cheap garden sprayer. The color is a rich brown and made the fence look so much better.

The following review is my experience refinishing my fence with Ready Seal stain/sealer. 4 years ago I rebuilt my privacy fence using cedar pickets this time around instead of the pressure treated pine used previously. Wanting to let the wood weather/dry out/shrink before I stained it, somehow 4 years went by. The south (full sun) facing portion of the fence had turned dark gray (almost black when wet) while the north facing side was a nice medium gray but had a little mildew in places. Letting it go so long required a major power washing. Now that the fence was looking almost new again It was time to put some protection on it. Having previously coated the fence (before rebuild) with a water based stain product I decided this time around I wanted an oil based stain that actually "absorbed/penetrated" into the wood. The water based stain (from that orange big box store) weathered like paint, meaning it peeled and flaked after a number of years on the full sun side of the fence. After much research I settled on Ready Seal. Ready Seal seemed to check all the boxes, oil based, "goof proof" application, long lasting, great reviews, etc. I initially started application with an airless sprayer but even with no perceptible wind there was enough air movement to drift the overspray to unwanted areas (like the wife's car 20' away, Yikes!) Also, while Ready Seal advertises no "back brushing" needed when spraying, for me, l could see that for all practical purposes, back brushing WAS going to be needed for optimal penetration. Considering I was working alone + the overspray situation + spraying a section of the fence then having to back brush the section I just sprayed, it was actually going to take longer than if I used a roller. So that's what I did. 8" Roller application was very easy on the smooth side of the fence and went relatively quickly (Considering I'm 76 years old). The side with the framework was obviously not as easy and required a 4" roller in addition to the 8" roller to facilitate application. The Ready Seal soaked into the cedar pickets like a sponge and dried to a beautiful warm reddish brown finish, much nicer than I had anticipated. The amount of Ready Seal used required about as much as advertised per sq. ft. As far as durability, time will tell but the thousands of reviews are favorable. I deducted a star for the review because the 5 gallon container had taken a beating during transit and had multiple dents and a slight seepage in the bottom edge of the metal container. I transferred the stain to a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Clean up was about as expected for an oil based product, requiring the use of mineral spirits to clean the rollers, the plastic 5 gallon bucket, the airless sprayer, etc. All in all I would use Ready Seal again + the NEXT DAY (for me) Amazon delivery and the fact that I didn't have to do a 20 mile round trip like I did for the 1st 5 gallons makes it yet again a Win for using Amazon Prime.

This is an unbiased review. This product is EXCELLENT! Best stain BY FAR that I’ve ever used. Goes on easy, does not blotch and absorbs in the wood EVENLY providing a great pattern. Applied to 1 yr old redwood deck. Sanded first, pressure washed, then let dry for 3 days. Used a brush taped to a pole for gaps between boards, then a 4 inch wide 1/2” nap roller. Couldn’t use a sprayer due to wind. Very very easy app. O All I can say is wow- a product that actually does what it claims!

Best stain on the market. We've tried many with our 3 story log home. This stain lasts the longest and each time you re-stain it lasts even longer. Easiest stain to use, spray or brush on, NO lap marks, easy clean up, and so forgiving! We will NEVER use anything else.

Great stain, reasonable price great color.