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Cheers, will give the sanding / filling a go & see how it comes up
@Sharkstar - that had crossed my mind & would probably save the ball-ache of redoing this every couple of years, if the first option looks gash I think that might be on the cards - I take it a properly painted finish would be more resilient than varnish of any sort?
mcJ78-
The wood you're looking at is basically denatured. Very often it's only slightly softer than normal and doesn't always have a lot of rot. It's easy enough to handle if you are overpainting but clear varnish is a bit more of a challenge.
The earlier advice has been on point though, it might just need a little sanding and coat it with some sort of exterior varnish. It's a job you need to do fairly regularly rather than try and find a forever solution.
A paint system applied properly, something like Dulux Weathershield will have an 8-10 year guarantee, longest lasting in gloss white, shortest in dark matt finishes. I use All-coat with a coat of cover stain as a primer. So far approaching 6 years without problem in some local jobs. Oil based Dulux weathershield jobs have got past 10 years now but are beginning to crack here and there, mostly on edges of cills.
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If the wood isn’t actually rotten, as Airhead says, sand and varnish keeps the current look, but won’t last as long as a good paint system. Painting over oak (which is what it looks like you have there) isn’t to everyone’s taste.
Airhead
Sharkstar
The ronseal professional stuff is probably fine for smaller jobs. Repaircare is recommended by airhead but I’ve yet to use it because I needed to learn with cheaper materials to start with :)
The thing you want to avoid with outside wood is allowing water to penetrate and settle in it as you get more rot and in the winter it freezes then splits the wood. I’m not sure if yacht varnish will prevent that from happening, hence fill the cracks first with filler.
If you aren’t worried about the overall finish. A Quick sand with a sponge, apply filler to seal all the gaps, sanding back then vanishing is probably not too onerous tbh.