MMI Enterprises

Most everything in online forums are viewable to public via actual membership or as a guest user. Exception would be pm system and subforums passworded due to things like rated content, forum management use, sponsor use, good ol'e boy clubs, etc...Why worry about it though. If we live online as we do in real life with integrity and character then it doesn't matter if people lurk and learn if they so desire. My personal opinion is I would never promote the idea of suppresion of knowledge as I feel it would eat my soul and affect my ability to gain or keep respect. What this lady doesn't get is that such info to do things herself has always been available through some means or another. Trade magazines, trade schools, engineering/chemistry/mechanics classes are available. If she a DIYer then more power to her. If she wants to blow 3 times what the job would cost for ALL the equipment in order to do it right as well as throw away a weekend or more of her time in purchasing and researching things then good for her. She must have lots of time on her hand. But I would ask what kind of laziness has kept her on her butt til now or what kind of brain disfunction has infected her with the idea that people can't clean things on their own if they have skills and required equipment. Above all I would ask her where she gets off wasting your time if she wanted to do it herself in first place. Time is money....You were there to serve her as we are in a service business. If she is so nieve to think that the main purpose of business is something other then making money and showing growth oriented profit then she obviously should take some classes related to business first before attending the acredited school of penny pinching.... Can't blaim a person for interviewing you on what you bring to the table far as quality but putting you on the spot with this forum info and rates and then trying to shame you into sacrificing your well thought out convictions of pricing your company to suit your perticular market is simply low down. That's not to say it is low down for her trying to save money or by her comparing you to other businesses you might be in competition with in your area but it is low down to relate her worth to your worth as a bargaining chip while in the process of hiring a service. She should do that before hand before wasting hard working peoples time.

ok so I sent Ken 20 questions by PM... let's see if he's game..lol :)

Ken, one rail butyl..other PG? ... also, what's in the HD80 besides hydroxide? psst, pm system workin?

Should we assume you mean per side to calc material and that you agree there not be much loss of material?.

Holy cow..Is anyone as tired as I right now??? Every bone and muscle in my body hurts....Since early Wed. night I've done a 12k grocery store, a dance studio, a hair salon, a 30k warehouse, a 7-11 store, and then another 18k warehouse... took 5 shifts , am exhausted beyond comprehension.. Oh and to top it all off have had to scramble in scheduling baby sitter, mowing and edging the lawn, and playing Mr. Mom by day.. oh yea that's right ..wonder what they are into right about now.............TGIF!!

she doin the back yard and watchin the kids now.oh and her name is 'hey hun'.. as in "hey hun, can ya get me a drink?", or "hey hun can ya mow the back lawn?" .... earlier on her way home from work it was "hey hun, can ya pick me up some sardines for fishing?"

Only 12 years? geez..I thought you were hard core..haha j/k I'm going fishing now..

monoethanolamine, potassium hydroxide, 2-butoxyethoxy ethanol add up to which, if any, of these products? That be what is in my $6 per gal. floor stripper for waterbased acrylic...Wonder how close it is to the wood care products..It don't strip many paints I run across on floors though so I guess I gotta throw in straight hydroxide or that methylene ________ stuff in the Jasco type products for these decks or what? Be a sport Ken and tell us all yer secrets :)

ps- I'll take that spread sheet too please.. :)

Celeste, Are those starbursts a pain to clean where they all meet together or does the chem pretty much prepare them enough for stain? What size would some you folks call that one main rail section in Celeste's picture? Could be seen any number of ways: --8'L X 4'H X 2 sides + approx. 8' ( .5' thick X 16' worth of top and side railing) = 72 sq. ft. ? -- or 8L X 3.5H spindles X 4 sides = approx. 73 sq. ft. ? -- or 8L X 4' height X 2side X 1.5 PITA = (the real 6' METHOD) = 96' sq.ft. which makes up for missed surface area factors in other methods.. I'de rather deal with adjusting a factor internally for various items then changing dollars and cents per sq. ft pricing which gets remembered by word of mouth from one customer to the next. In my opinion actual sq. ft price only gets adjusted depending on what level of service your to perform and what type surface your dealing with.. In other words, cleaning is one rate, stripping is one rate, sealing can or might be one rate and the surfaces might be wood, roofs, carpet, vinyl or concrete which can change the rate. I say in measuring use factors and then apply the total sq. footages to your services rate. In this manner the extra chemical/sealer/stain/labor becomes built in. On the amount of stain use as Larry refers to...If your spraying efficiently like a good painter you would be spraying at an angle from surface as well as rotating your spray pattern and/or sizing it down some. A verticle fan spray pattern if done correct will coat 2 of the 4 sides of a spindle at once.. then you hop over the other side and do same.. http://www.spraytechsys.com/literature/wag_lit/wag_pdf/HVLP_training.pdf When I look at such angles I don't see a whole lot more work or product use. I only see that if you were to flatten the angles out in front of you that the actual surface area about doubles but that it would fill the viewable air space as if it a solid board. Also, in closing....I don't believe people are paying for anything in the way of measuring. It is just considered internal for my business use to keep some consistancy between quoting customers an end price. When a job is very product use intensive then it is important for you to not loose your shirt but on regular maintentance of things I would get laughed off property if I start measuring things so specific and be considered a nickel and dimer. In my opinion it is ok to discuss approx. sqft. and pricing thereof with customers but that it is way better to discuss what your going to do for them in the way of service and quality.

Nice drive.. what ya use to clean and seal?

Sorry, I mean to say that every board is different and it seems that the one pic we have of the stain dry shows the citric board as having a tad darker grain and more of it as well. Was thinking that oxalic would not make that boards grain look more like the other which on my screen is just a hair lighter. ..Maybe if you get around to it we can get you to give us a wider perspective picture as well as the down the road ones of dry and wet. So I am asking for 3 more pics....I ask alot of you..haha.. Meant to be dry volumemetric oz of product measured by liquid/volumetric measure far as I ever knew..not by weightThink it's 1 fluid/liquid/dry oz. = 1/4 cup dry product... so 6oz of the acid is 1.5 cup in standard measure cups.. ... well someone correct me if wrong please..lol p.s.- oh heck.. that aint right apparently cause my measuring cup that has both dry and liquid scale shows 1/8 dry equals more like 1 liquid oz.... I think in accounting for the bottom of the miniscus some may quote wrongly in a quik glance. The whole scale is moved down on liquid measure.... There are 8 eighths in a whole 8 oz volumetric measure so I don't know why my brain didn't realize before....somebody slap me.. :) Think 1 fluid/liquid/dry oz. = 1/8 cup fluid/liquid/dry product... so 6oz of the acid is 3/4 cup in standard measure cups..

...What was that about?.. weather related or just something about ipe in general maybe causing leeching? I think they both look good but would have liked to have seen the results of experiment on one board alone cause I'm thinking the darker grain on the citric one is likely to have just stayed same with oxalic as with the citric. Tone being different though of course as we can all see.... After a few weeks can you please take some more pics of the boards both dry and then wet? I'de like to see the difference of both their color tone then and also how much the RS changes in the way of allowing or dispersing standing water... They imply it changes..

lol..Stephen yer killing me..... one question though... whod does this mean is eatin the crow?? ..speaking of fish..anyone wonder why this late night kinda guy is up so early on the leftist coast?..ok you guessed it..gotta test out my new striper pole..

HaHa Mike..yer just gonna beat around bush by not speaking to it hu? You know I want more chemical draw... I would think the 5003c is the one size down for a lower gpm machine not higher. Is that what your doing..going one size smaller?.. and if so do you notice any power loss at your tip?.. Info that some engineers sent me makes it clear that restrictions cause energy conversions that sap power. The conversion of pressure energy to kinetic energy is when the water must speed up to go through a smaller orfice and during the conversion back to pressure energy you loose some amount of power. Connectors, coils, downstreamers, reel swivels, triggers, roll over nozzles for soaping..etc. cause restrictions but I don't know to what extent such can be classified as conversions from kinetic energy and back to pressure energy causing a loss... one of the engineers was very perticular with me on the idea that two venturi mounted inline (series) will not allow the first venturi to work. I some what question it though until I try it though. I suspect that there are these multiple conversions happening throughout our systems all the time. For instance my downstreamer (before I lost some of it's 2 parts) still worked fine when my rollover nozzle was busy sapping me of a smooth flow out my tip. Was it kinetic energy conversion related? I don't know.. What I do know is that the manufacture/suppliers for this industry are somewhat full of it.. You better believe that there are methods/designs to entrain larger amounts of chemical than we see available. The design depends on how much power loss we are willing to give up in the end. When the downstreamer is in it's usual position we are not willing to loose much at all therefore we can not entrain as much as some of us would like to. The solution to this might be found via plumbing methods of putting multiple streamers in parallel but sidelined to where we can turn them off with ball valves or in using a pump to force chemical into the downstreamer. Increasing the atmospheric pressure on top of the chemical tank/supply should do it just like an aerosol can so the pump added does not have to be a fluid pump persay. With this said I question the loss of power of the downsized chem injector method..I want to know what brand and model the M16 or Xjet uses. Before I am done I will be downstreaming with draw rates close to those gizmos. Although I don't understand it totally I do understand that I am willing to give up major psi power temporarily and let it flow out on a roof or house at almost atmospheric pressure at times. They do similar in the ag field. Our equipment is plenty powerful enough . Heck check out the water dredge industry if ya really want an example. I can lift(suck) a 4" collumn of water 30 ft. with a pump/venturi and a 5hp engine and soak a house in less than a minute easy ..just an example :) Here is sample engineer info that I have not run numbers on as of yet: ------------ morepowerwash (chris) do a search on xjet vs 0030 / downstreamer thread or maybe the Long distance Love thread

copied it..thanx..lol j/k my glossy cards are only one side.. other side I've had pricing tiers on them and can fill in the blanks

Yea with all that said...a 20% (5:1) marketed downstreamer matched perfect to a machine could dish out 2.4% from the starting 12% bleach if that were all that was going to be in the supply tank. Mike, what % bleach do you end up putting on house after adding things to your mix?...1.5% the recommended right? Don't think that enough for many houses with algea let alone roofs....Round here folks won't be ringing my tele til it a half inch on the wall.. ---------- And but hey! come on folks!!... Let's stop beating around the bush..... The Xjet and the M16 Thruster type products obviously gain their fantastic draw rates by way of their mounting position on end of wand rather than in the classic downstreamer position. They get a huge increase in differential pressure between the inlet supply and the outlet supply...One might think their venturi is totally different but I say prove it... Go ahead and tell me what brand and model venturi it is in the Xjet or M16...LOL... Mike, I was mistaken,I don't have Kassanders cat. I have Soapforhope/ Envirospec. That you right? oK but I see no 5003c offering but rather a 5004c (2-5gpm)... Ever try the Double Gulp in the Xjet position?

Some thoughts on how might the one be darker while wet.... Maybe it akin to same effect as when only washing with percarb/degreasers. Wood can seem darker while wet as if it actually made it darker but if you were to throw on either of the acid it immedietly lightens up. If it were let to dry without an acid wash it will be lighter upon drying and but may still have gray dead/rot stuff that should have been removed for best refinish. I think on the boards I've tried that I can say, for me personally, that percarb doesn't darken wood any more than other products that also lack the acid neutralizing abilities. Whenever I hear it I discount it cause it be my opinion that the situation was actually that of breaking through some sealer or oxidation/dirt film ...Rewetting such wood only done with the percarb/degreasers will show the grain areas darker as something of rot wasn't removed, or something of unsuitable lignen/natural oils wasn't removed that would effect stain absorbtion, or durability, etc. down the road. If you were to simply sand a board real deep you no longer have same effect to same degree. This idea may mean nothing to end result of this project when all this is dry but it seems possable that either the ph is heftier on one than the other or one has more the natural lignens, dead wood, etc./whatever still on surface or just under. Now I wonder if when this first coat dries how they will look if you were to get them wet. If the one get darker then I suspect we could call it potentially an earlier failure situation about to happen or a valid consideration when striving for even tone. With all I have said..I still know that I personally don't know much at all about wood..scary hu..

Mike, Have read plenty of times you saying that about downstreaming but since I haven't tried it on major roof algia or with long distance tips yet I wonder what others have to say about being able to get strong enough mix up there. Mine is broken right now so still need hold of the mysterious $12/ 3:1 to try it out.. (think I read them prices and draw rates here but anyways..) Any ideas? Kassander sent me a website catalog but I fail to see it in there.. BTW, In talking with some venturi engineers I do have most the needed info and formula's that could show the possability of perhaps doing xjet level ratios at the downstreamer possition. Just haven't ran the numbers yet to see let alone mecahnical fabrication/machining ability.

VCT is your standard everyday vinyl composition tile/resilient tile. When you say "sheet's" that is what you get with top coatings like on cars or vinyl tile. On sealed concrete, brick and/or your various commercial clay tiles installed in restaurant's it is often best to be straight penetration minded with no beading. However, once you go to film forming on surfaces you can still have wide variety in the sheeting ability and hence dry times. The more the film spreads out evenly the better. In wood the RS folks apparently understand the idea well and want it to act similar to sealed concrete. The two surfaces are very similar in this aspect. With concrete it can be sealed (protected from moisture harm and some measurable amount of moisture penetration) yet is often interprited by onlookers that it is not.. Standards for concrete are about 2% actual moisture pass through..wood I unsure of but I know we want it to breath and spread its moisture as well as outside moisture around so that the problems I sighted don't occure and also I imagine so that warping is minimized...This is not to imply it is ok for water to pass straight through either product like a seive (sp?) but that the % of absorbtion is controlled at some level for various surfaces. An example of how some of this applies can be experienced in going through the process of health inspectors going through their motions of inspecting meat fridges on slabs. To them, if it don't bead up then it aint sealed to the fluids passing through. Rather than taking chancethatitis truly sealed and all the liquid will evaporate they go the other extreme of forcing a top coat. They have reason for everything in this world I suppose.. but for most part many of these safe practices are just copied amongst counties for sake of saving money on their own education or research into the matter..

Me neither but I'de say overall the color reminds me of a beautiful non-gloss walnut gunstock... The Ready Seal FAQ perhaps explains it best: "Why does product stop beading water? After the product has completely soaked in, the beading will stop. This does not mean that it has stopped performing. Ready Seal is made to spread water out so it will dry up as quickly as possible. It is still keeping water out even though it is not beading water. " ...Water beading to show that something is sealed is not all it's cracked up to be. On vehicles if the level is not just right you can get mineral spotting but most like it. On concrete or vct if it is too much you can get slip and fall easier due to water taking longer to dry. And in case of some decks in some parts of the country I imagine that same applies as well as possability of stains forming around the drying water areas.. Almost have to sqweegie it off if it don't dry fast enough. Is called surface tension and can relate to slip resistance. The odd thing is that with some sealer manufactures (like found at big box) they apparently don't care too much about such.. I can tell you my own horror stories as it relates to this but I don't like to talk bad about products if I can help it...

I got two long versions from senior application engineers for venturi makers these last few days and it entails the water converting from pressure energy to kinetic energy while going through chamber which casues the suction based entrainment of the chemical. It gets converted back to pressure energy after leaving the chamber. There appears to be different type. I'll post up the convo if anyone interested..

Rather than the chemical coming from upstream of the pump prior to pressurizing water you stick it in downstream high pressure so as not to hurt mechanical items with harsh chemicals..

That is almost too beautiful deck to touch isn't it?.. I see that water puddling and wonder if that will go away same as the RS says theirs will. I would not want it to stay that way thats for sure.

On this defelting.... can you folk tell me what grit you like to end at before staining? And does it matter for you if it is a penetrating sealer or a top coat type you'll be using?. 80? 120?, etc. I been doing research on simply making my own Hexpin type driver for standard rotary floor machines that can be used with stones, pads, etc. to remove all sorts of coatings, or in this case sand & polish, on large areas. HD rents a 17" driver which comes with very aggressive stripper heads or chippers that would likely take off most paints. Pearl Abrasives sells it and other attachments for concrete diamond grinding or sanding pads. Problem is the rotary marks it will leave if I don't step down abrasive levels sufficiently. 120 grit is fine for vct before acrylic topping and crete starts to be considered actually polished up past about 1000 grit .. so where everyone stand on the wood?? Reasons I want to just make this item relate to the size of my floor machines and ability to use it on autoscrubber in wet surface conditions.. The pads, attachments, and the shafts that drive them are same size as on hand tools yet the driver costs close to $400 not counting accessories. p.s. thinks we now got all the keywords.. deburring, defurring, fuzzies, defelting...lol