I’m a Sherwin Williams ‘woodscapes’ guy, use it all the time. I see no reason to use abatron on the tiny holes from the vinyl (don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing) just regular wood filler is fine. DONT caulk the horizontal seams in the boards!

They installed the vinyl because they were sick of maintaining this stuff.

Yes, it was actually my father-in-law who had the vinyl installed a year after buying the house. Definitely didn't want the maintenance. But the vinyl in some areas is now cracked & faded. I'm prepared for maintenance but want to do it right.

A stain is what it states, it stains the fibers of the wood. A semi solid stain is a play on words to think you're using a stain but is really a diluted paint, and a solid stain is just paint. If you're going to do all this work to restore the cedar don't us paint. You're lucky it was never painted, and the reason people paint over cedar is because they don't want to re stain the siding every 3 or 5 years. Once it's painted you can never go back.

You can't strip a stain, the wood is STAINED and in the wood so sanding down enough to remove it will take you a life time of Sundays. A wood brightener is a bleach and this will work to lighten the ghetto gray and then stain with a stain, no a diluted paint. The lighter the stain color is proportional to the number of years it will need re-stained. A clear stain may need reapplied biannually, and a darker stain color can go more years because of the level of UV protection.

Original TWP stain is the only stain registered with the EPA as a preservative. The preservative is harmless but the original has high VOC levels so it's banned in 16 states. This is what I use knowing I need to re-stain every X number of years. If you paint or use a diluted paint it blocks the pores so the wood won't breath and the eventually peel and and will take a month of Sundays to scrape the wood to re-paint. Don't fall for the BS those semi solid paints/stains claim can go ten or twenty years without reapplying. If you look at TWP and decide you want it but you live in one of the nanny states with bans on it go to another state and buy it.

You say you are prepared to do the maintenance, but every single year, you are prepared to climb the ladder to wash and recoat?

I'd hope to get 3-4 years out of a high quality product, but...yeah. Or pay somebody else to do it.

My former home was a two-story clad with cedar clapboards. It was built in the early 1980's in a coastal Virginia climate zone. Most of the siding is original. I found it to be susceptible to rot mainly where it abuts window trim and corner boards. Proper caulking of those areas and maintaining it over time goes a long way to extending the life of the siding. Ditto for periodic washing to remove mildew. I used SW Woodscapes on the siding which performs really well.

@Charles Ross Homes - thank you for your feedback. What about horizontal caulking between planks? I've been told both to do it (to keep out bugs....although seems to me I'd be more worried about the kind of bugs that drill into the wood, not creep between the seams) and not to do it (because it looks lousy with stain and prevents wood's natural movement). Any thoughts there?

Do not caulk horizontal joints in siding; it prevents water that may get behind the siding from draining.