Olympic Maximum 1 gal. Canyon Brown Transparent Exterior Stain and Sealer in One Low VOC

I had used Wolman Semi-Transparent for years and years. I find the Wolman product wears incredibly well. However, sometime in the past year or two, Wolman decided that "cedar" would now be a dark, dingy brownish shade. It is devoid of all hints of orange and just not pleasing to the eye.I started researching and ended up going with Olympic, good price, decent quality. I will update this review as it wears, but so far it has been on my deck for about a month and it looks great. Obviously the proof is in one full season.It stirs easily and goes on well. It has great coverage. Go by the coverage on the can. It is very accurate. My deck is about 23 years old. I cleaned it and power washed it, and the coverage was spot on. My deck is about 300 sq ft, plus railings, balusters, and two sets of stairs (typical 5-7 stairs and 4' wide). I used about 1 1/3 gallons and it covered well.I brushed it on, which takes longer but I always find to be neater. The only thing I did not do is my side lattice work for the deck foundation, but the remaining 2/3 of a gallon will easily cover that.Coverage is consistent and the color adds some orange "cedar" type color to the deck boards. Although it looks brown in the can, it is pretty transparent, so if you have various shades of deck due to age, discoloration, etc. this will not cover that, so lighter wood looks lighter than darker wood, etc. - like any other semi-transparent.The review photo is from a cloudy day, so in sunlight, the boards appear a bit lighter and with slightly more orange to them. Again, my deck is old and some of my boards are darker so my color is not going to be as consistent as on a 2 to 10 year old deck.

I powerwashed and sanded my deck and then I was looking to stain and seal it. I applied the product with 48 hours before any rain. It looked great. Then we had a tropical storm come through and it washed off. My husband got another gallon of the same exact stuff (even though I was going to buy a different brand, convinced it was junk). I applied the second can and it went on pretty like the first can. This time, I had again about 48 hours before rain but it only rained a few nights in the last couple of weeks. It still looks great two weeks later. It seems Olympic needs to add a warning to the label about heavy rain within so many days after application. This was really disappointing and I wish I could get a refund for the can that didn’t stay on the deck.

Haven’t used but it’s half the size I expected.

This is a great stain and sealer to use. I had my deck cleaned but waited too long in the season to get it sealed by an expert. I'm doing this myself and it is not difficult. The only thing I wish was that my cans were dented a lot in transit. These would have to have been thrown without regard to the cautionary fragile statements on the box to get so dented. Luckily, it was received without opening by accident, so the way the manufacturer packed them is to be commended.

We were very happy with our Olympic stain which we used on our deck. It needed very little stirring and wasn't too thin or too thick. We got great coverage. Was so happy that it didn't dry so quickly that it left overlap marks which is what we encountered with another brand we used one year.

Easy to apply and maximum protection

This stain ended up being different than what we originally bought locally in a Big Box store. This was thinner and easier to apply. The labels were completely the same so not sure what the difference was. The color that was stated is for new wood not aged wood, even though I sanded the entire deck down to fresh wood. It absorbed more and gave a darker look not as transparent as I hoped. Overall it was easy to apply and looked great. It is repelling water nicely

The professional painter that painted the bare wood in my outside kitchen recommended this brand when it came time to touch up. Worked great.