I personal have worked with Garapa decking for three residential applications and with good results 1x6 from Advantage Trim and Lumber the finish that we applied all three times was Messmers U.V. Plus which makes the wood look the same as if it where wet this old guy like the look and it does seem to darken the material just a little.

I was leaning towards a darker stain with my Garapa but after getting it put down it's so beautiful I may go with something lighter...maybe cedar toned. I hope to get some samples and will put up some pics in the next couple weeks.

No Garapa pictures on the site for now, I have been a little compacted latley maney hand shake deals fell thu so the winter looks tricky. Dammm wall street crap.

Garapa is some cool stuff after a while in the sun it turns a dark golden color so I can see the Sparks going with a lighter shade. One thing I have been fooling around with garapa after the dark has set in can be routered to bring back the yellow/golden color then finished with two diferent shades. I did this with a custom bench the golden detail really looked good and stayed that way. Upkeep will be needed but its a neat thing with garapa.
John Mon

I took some pic of one I did during the summer. The folks stained it themselves with TWP in the rustic color, looked nice. I have some pics up on photobucket.com, go there & search for username deckman22 album if you want a look.

Al

Does anyone have any thoughts or knowledge of painting Garapa?

It would be a crime. J.

prodecker,

I am installing a Garapa deck, and want to retain the original lighter yellow/tan color, especially, the color when they are wet. I was about to go with Penofin Hardwood (Bronze), but then started looking at Messmer's Hardwood Natual, because I thought the Penofin might "brown" the wood. Messmer's advertises high solids content of 40%, whereas Penofin promotes as being low solids (content not specified). Why would I pick one over the other?

How would you say the two compare?