DuroGrit

Needs better application instructions

BEAUTIFUL BUT CHALLENGING

I have found Durogrit to be both a beautiful finish and incredibly difficult to work with. For me, it has been very challenging to get an outstanding result. I’m a homeowner finishing a pair of new Douglas Fir exterior front doors, and my first attempt was so bad that I needed to sand back and start over. A very short open time was the main problem; it was impossible for me to avoid overlap. And the finish starts to dry on the brush after about 15 minutes; soap and water likely won’t be enough for cleanup. Basically: If you don’t have very good brush technique and years of experience with a variety of different finishes, proceed with extreme caution. And maybe don’t choose a high-stakes project like front doors as your first use, like I did! I will say that Rubio support has been reasonably helpful—they connected me with a contractor who talked me through a better process for my situation. After talking with him, I decided to stick with it. The project is still in progress, so while I’m getting better results now…we’ll see how it goes!

Large variance in the way different colors went on the wood.

Keith - feels weird giving feedback here, but I was in a productive email mood. This duroGrit product is just a lot different than the interior products, which we love. I found this difficult to get an even coat - massive differences between soft and hard parts of the wood. But even more so, a large difference in the various colors. I found that the online pictures looked dramatically different than the product on wood. Additionally, comparing something like the black to the gray, the black went on basically like paint, covering hard and soft spots the same, but the grey went on more like a traditional stain. It was just difficult to figure out which one to use as each coolor seemed to behave differently. Anyway, still love the product and will continue to use the interior stuff. Will give the exterior durogrit another shot in the future at some point but initial impressions were tricky.