RPetry

No problem. Any time between 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM is fine, Monday through Saturday is best. Sunday is a day of rest unless we are backed up on staining due to wet weather. Beth, Good for you and Rod. You are slowing sliding into the dark side of straight paraffin oil for exterior wood staining. Halfway there. Organic oils including linseed are a terrific "food" for mold and mildew. Heresy! You're birthday is over so shame on you! A 100% paraffin oil stain has no "organic" ie: linseed being the most common, or "food source" oils. It's a by product of petroleum! Unless you are an unknown organism living thousands of feet below the land or seabed, there is nothing on our earth surface environment that eats paraffin oil. Acrylics are barely OK for vertical exterior wood. Unless it is cedar or mahogany. Over time these woods will rot to the point where a sponge has more constitution.

Park an old, unused car in a partially shaded spot for a year. Or a snowmobile, inflatable doll, table, spoon, Home Depot 2 x 4, rubber duck. In many climates in the United States, they will show some mildew, maybe even the "dreaded" mold. Or black spots, even some moss if you're in Maine. It is not the stain. Unless purchased from Home Depot, Lowe's, or a clueless paint retailer. BDA is the way.

Beth, Thanks for reminding me. At 60, one has long forgotten how old you are. Just ask me ... Best to you today and all the tomorrows. Make Rod cook and clean for a week! Barb and Tom send their best, I'm sneaking off with her to the Rhineland after the season. Wanna' come? Two certified wood minx in Europe after a long wood season is a dream come true. Give the word, and I'll book the flight! Don't tell Rob, he's a ton bigger than me. Enough of this nonsense, my best to both of you. You're an original, real wood minx, and us woodies just love you to death. That is, if you leave the whips and chains at home ...

Patrick, We only work on exterior wood. There is no way sodium percarbonate cleaners or high pH sodium hydroxide stain strippers kill mold, mildew, lichen and even moss. Nothing comes close to sodium hypochlorite (aka. bleach). We use a lot of it on restorations and wood maintenance jobs. Just do a Grime Scene search on "BDA"! You're up, Shane and Diamond Jim!

Jake, Not sure. I believe RS was compliant without change of product prior to the 250 g/l VOC regulations. An old MSDS sheet indicates 15% mineral spirits solvent. If you read the press release in the link above, this is a further decrease in VOC content in the stain this year. The current MSDS on their web site indicates a 9% solvent(?), described as "Distillates, Petroleum, Hydrated Light" with a CAS number. I am no chemist!

Received the following email from Forever Redwood out of California. President Obama presents Forever Redwood bench to Chinese Leader Xi Jinping. This is a terrific company for obtaining old growth redwood. We have ordered custom dimensions from them in the past and the quality has been outstanding. No comment on our President, this is not a political diatribe. But he or more probably his staff have good taste in gifts. See: http://go.emaildir2.com/l/a/97i/vi/5zo/30i/b16/trouble.htm

Shane, As I mentioned, we've been applying this "new" RS off and on for 7 weeks now. I could not tell any difference. And I've been using RS for about 13 years. Don's quite a sharp guy and he has good people working for him. I would bet that any new formulation has been well tested before releasing into the market. They have built a good business over many years and they're too smart to jeopardize the product. Good for Texas! You Longhorns don't put up with much nonsense! But its getting harder as the Feds, Greenies, and P.C. crowd crack the whip.

Shane, Good point. Chinese restaurants use a ton of oil. Just ask the greasers. Americans supply the pigments and marketing and all is good. Anyone know any entrepreneural mainland or preferably Hong Kong Chinese businessmen? I smell "Happy Family".

Shane, China now has a ton of cars. Used, dirty motor oil was employed many years ago here in the U.S. to preserve wood. May not look too good, but apparently does a great job in protecting the wood. Take that, Armstrong-Clark and Ready Seal! Used real oil, non-synthetic, with a bit of pigment and solvent, and sophisticated "green" marketing. Americans will love the recycle angle, sell it for $15.95/gal. at Walmart, and make a veritable fortune!

Shane, You need one of those enclosed stain booth pergola jobs that you specialize in. There's something that the newer wood guys on TGS should see!

Friggin' Texas has a lot of fences. Must be that old "gotta lot of cattle" tradition.

12%? Makes a big difference.

Ryan, A year of weathering on PTP should be plenty of time. Unless the wood was full out shaded from the sun and/or protected from moisture. I'm not familiar with Sikkens but if it is mostly oil based, you may want to try acetone. Take a rag, douse it with some acetone, and quickly try rubbing out a small "shiner". The stuff is extremely volatile and evaporates quickly. A note of caution. Don't light a smoke when working with acetone.

Here's a truly heart warming story about the bond formed between a little 4-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time. A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot. The young family's 4-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually the construction crew, all of them "gems-in-the-rough," more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her 20 little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars "pay" she'd received to the bank the next day to start a savings account. When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, "I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us." "Oh my goodness gracious," said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week too?" The little girl replied, "I will, if those arseholes at Home Depot ever deliver the effin' drywall..."

Jeremy, Used motor oil was a very popular exterior wood preservative decades ago. And apparently very effective. Years ago, Everett Abrams (a long time woodie) was at the USDA's Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wi. A researcher with the lab showed him some test wood that had been exposed to the weather for 40+ years after being "stained" with dirty motor oil. He said that the wood was in extremely good condition.

Shane, Hah! You know what it can be all about. Random orbitals with 60 grit and a Makita buffer takes care of the furring. It's the mojo, nasty stripper mixes that does the real work. Don't tell anybody!

Shane, O heavenly Father, Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to bless and sanctify this house and all who dwell therein and everything else in it, ...

Beth, I think I called Russell once. He called me a few times. Conversation always seemed to degredate into a screaming fest. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Kind of miss him though. Added spice to a somewhat conservative business.

Beth, This is an old thread. What ever happened to Russell and Extreme Solutions? Curious, inquiring minds want to know!

Brian, You do not know how much fun and satisfying restoring wood is. And if you sell to the better demographics, manage expectations right, and schedule correctly, there are few problems. Well, except for wet weather! Personally, I could not get up in the morning looking forward to facing square yards of concrete, vinyl siding, or asphalt shingles. Boring. To each his own. Most dedicated woodies are small operations, a truck or two, and a couple of employees. The owner gets out in the field, gets wet and dirty, and has a lot of satisfaction at the end of a day. There is nothing in the PW business that comes close in home owner satisfaction and personal achievement in correctly restoring exterior wood. Customers become friends, you see them every year or two. You get to know them, their dogs, the kids, the neighbors. Its a different, but a highly personalized, craftsman type business. Are you going to make a ton of money? It can be done, but then you lose many of the benefits outlined above. But you can make a respectable living just working wood for 7 - 8 months of the year.

Scott, Wow, a local guy that does wood! We just moved up to Toad Lane in Ringoes last fall from Plainsboro. Give a holler if you need anything. How about this 90+ F. temps the last 2 days? This is ungodly for May. We finally quit at 2:00 PM today, too hot to work in the sun. Armstrong-Clark makes a fine stain. I'm partial to Ready Seal, but both are good stains for ipe'. We work on a lot of ipe' and other hardwoods.

Yup. Spoken like a true trooper. I've had NaOH burns kind of like that, Stripper Cream. Rinse, soak a bit in citric acid, and hope it does not get infected. Grin and bear it, go back to work. Woodie first aid. Still kicking.

Adrian, Hah! YouTube comes to the rescue. We have a female Springer Spaniel that just loves to scent car tires. I don't get it, our male Schnauzer just passes them by. Beth, Understood. But it was fun while it lasted!

Beth, I understand but am a bit disappointed with the cut. I thought our off topic banter on dog behavior was appropriate, slightly educational, and possibly humorous considering the topic at hand. Not a problem, I'm sure other opportunities will be available.

Jesus Christos! You had better find another religion! Tom and Barbara of ACR Products are terrific. You could not find a better business partner.