Sanding and re-staining 2 Slat Wood Eggmates

TEXASBGE2018

So this may just be my OCD coming up but I can't stand that the wood egg mates come from the factory in this ugly doodoo brown color that looks like it was mopped on with a paint by numbers brush. It doesn't even match the wood handle color. I did a little searching but didn't turn up many results. Have any of you sanded down and re stained them? What type of wood are they, it looks to me that the wood is cedar, is that the case? If any of you have examples of what you have done please share. I think I am going to sand mine down soon and will post the process.

smokingal

I bought some to replace my original Eggmates that were damaged by careless movers.  You are so right about that 'ugly doodoo brown color' that was just mopped on.  Wood work and repair is not my forte, but since I haven't used them yet, I'm hoping I can just use a stain or paint remover to strip the mates and then use a much more pleasant looking deck stain and some outdoor polyurethane varnish to coat them.

HoustonEgger

I've done this twice on my original eggmates (circa 2007) - most recently I stripped off the stain (just used a sander, 80 grit and then 220) and simply sealed with outdoor poly. Type of wood on mine was not cedar - more of a cypress I think.

DoubleEgger

I sanded and refinshed mine a while back and upgraded the hardware. The next time I will probably replace the slats with plastic cutting board material or something similar. 

TEXASBGE2018

I love the shelves themselves. Just wish that BGE would actually take the time to think about things like this. If people are spending $1,000+ on a grill how hard would it be to put forth some effort to make the dang shelves not look like something a 6 year old kid cut with a hand saw and slopped brown paint on. Why not make them out of Walnut or Acacia wood or something similar and then just Poly them. In the bulk that they would buy it wouldn't cost much I wouldn't think and to me would make them look a lot more high end. If after sanding them I'm not happy with the results I may just go and buy some Exotic wood pieces and make new ones.

TEXASBGE2018

Now that I say that I just looked at the Mothership homepage and sure enough per usual BGE Style, you can buy "upgraded" Acacia Wood Mates. I'm sure they are $200 or some other outrageous price.

DaveRichardson

 Red or white oak planks are my replacement from my old 4-slay bands that I bought second-hand for $20. 

Kept them hem a little long because I liked the look. Completely stripped the pain off the old ones and repainted black. Also replaced the black painted acorn nuts to stainless steel ones to complete the renovation. 

Also changed to screwing them on from underneath rather than from the top to keep it looking clean. 

stlcharcoal

Throw em away and just screw a cutting board to the frames.  I used my leftover decking so they're stained and matched to the deck.