RPetry

DJ, We often strip/clean ipe' and stain the same day. Like stain, ipe' is near impervious to water.

Charlie, On my unit, at lower PSI, the flow adjustment has to be at the full setting. Otherwise the stain kind of splatters or spits out of the cone tip.

Hey Charlie, Yes, we use the brass cone tips for both the long and short guns. Been meaning to play around with a fan tip but haven't gotten around to it.

Yup. Agree wholeheartedly. I think the reason this ipe' has held pigment so well is that it was left to weather and naturally age for 5+ years. I noticed a remarkable gain in stain longevity on my own ipe' deck when I stripped it and let it weather for a full year.

Hey Matt, Good to see you back on TGS. Hope all is well in Northern California. No masking. The house is stucco and the columns painted with a tough acrylic. Stripped out easily at 4 oz./gal. of NaOH with a bit of added surfactant. If this dry weather holds, we'll start staining the pergola tomorrow. Again, no masking. The Decker 5'er at about 25 PSI will keep overspray to a minimum for the majority of the wood. 2 - 3 feet of the pergolatory closest to the walls will be stained by hand. Different angle, but attached is a picture taken prior to stripping.

Matt, I agree with Jim above. A good pre-wetting of the grass, followed by another good soaking after applying your NaOH mix to the wood, should be more than adequate to negate any harm to the grass. Residual NaOH in the pressure washing phase is so diluted as to be virtually harmless to plants. Another tact would to use a "paste" type stripper, ie: Eaco Chem's Stripper Cream, applied by hand. No overspray or dripping onto the lawn.

Thanks Kevin, Proper preparation is 75% of a good job.

Mr. Brooks, You are as a guess, 20 or 30 years younger than I am. Go for it. At a certain age, experience with a dose of wisdom does wonders for self preservation. Its not dangerous, if you've done this type of work many times before. But when you get older, experience and common sense is a wonderful thing. No plywood board. If I cannot skate this thing, its time to sell or more likely, give away the business. Anyway, the job prepped out well.

Adrian, I think cleaning roofs is dangerous, but will walk on stripper slick elevated 2 x 4's. Go figure. Problem is I will not allow the help to do this kind of hazardous work, so its the old man every time! Worth it though, its a very nice property in a high end area. You can see how black the cedar pergola, and even the red mahogany, has turned with the Cabot Clear Solution. Gotta' love untinted linseed oil! Kevin, Can't imagine what you are describing. Do you have a picture?

Beth, Yeah that was a fun thread. Dead of winter, we all had time on our hands, went on like 17 pages. Baiting, cat-calling, good info, and generally a great time for all. For old time's sake, my major contribution ...

The "Great Bleach Debate" thread of years gone by is the best thread ever on TGS.

Beth, Hah, so you admit it! Scandalous, trolling for a fight like that! I demand an infraction be assessed! Yes, I am aware that the oil content in A-C is ~ half linseed, ~ half paraffin oils. The idea is paraffin for conditioning/moisturizing, linseed for a dried "lock" on the surface. Although I am not much of a customer, Jake and I have become quite good friends and talk frequently.

Beth, It is a bit overboard to state that I hate linseed oil. We use it on occasion. Tried to use the blended A-C on a 1st time ipe' job last week. For numerous reasons I do prefer paraffin oil for most applications. No, pigment itself does not "cure". From what I have been told, it is the proprietary resins in stain that lock or bind the pigment, mildewcide/fungicide, and in some cases linseed oil to the surface of the wood.

Rod, This is a bit of a misstatement. RS certainly cures on the surface, only instead of drying oil, it is resin and pigment that "cures". Meanwhile the paraffin oil is down into the wood. As far as washing off with a "soaking rain", that is a curious thing to say. This past Friday, we stopped by an ipe' maintenance we stained on Thursday with Ready Seal. Thursday night we had violent thunderstorms throughout the region with associated heavy rain. Nothing "washed off" the surface, the finish was perfect.

A number of years ago Consumer Reports rated a Cabot acrylic product #1, by a large margin, for the best exterior decking stain. This may have been true for simple one time application and longevity, but they fail to account for ease and cost of maintenance.

Diamond Jim, More On = Moron. Hah! Nothing beats customer education. Very effective with sales, especially if you have to beat it into them with a big stick.

This is a job first done in September 2009. After a sodium hypochlorite/soap cleaning, and 8 months of weathering, very little original stain left. Normal, it's ipe' and fairly new. What is critical is that the ipe' has not greyed out. Stain is still wet in the pics, color is medium red. This is very similar to Armstrong-Clark's new color, mahogany.

Adrian, I'll have to get the lowdown on the Hindu/Buddest head sculpture. All I know is that it is old, purchased from an antiquties dealer from NYC, and we had better not mess it up. Just moving it is nerve wracking, the finish is like powder and comes off on your hands and the ipe' deck. I would not care to do anything with the old growth cedar siding. The wood is absolutely prime, great coloring and in primo condition. The mesquite doors look like something out of a Clint Eastwood western. Doesn't need any help. Every once in a while there is wood where you just say NO.

I want this house. Some of the most beautiful, interesting wood I have seen. Not the ipe' decks, which are becoming almost common in this area, but the 100 yr. old barn cedar siding and the old mesquite doors from Mexico. Plus I like the "head" from India. Very old, who knows what type of wood.

I miss my '74 1/2 MGB-GT. And my hair. And my good looks....

I have had the good fortune to be mentored over the past several years by a semi-retired, 35 yr. + in the business, exterior wood contractor. Located in the Southwest, we have never met, but correspond and talk on the phone periodically. For his own reasons, he prefers to remain anonymous. I have never seen him post anything on internet BBS's. But for the 2nd season now, he has been testing and using a lot of A-C stain. The following are 2 emails and pictures from him. Posted with permission. _______________________________________________________________ Rick: Redwood deck after 15 months in the Arizona sun at 5800 feet. The deck was coated with Armstrong Clark Cedar Semi. Deck sits on the southwest end of the house and can get 14 hours of sun daily. I do not think it really needed a recoat, however, we did it to test the ease (or difficulty) of cleaning and recoating A/C. The deck was cleaned with TSP and Dawn liquid. We were going to recoat the deck with an A/C toner, but with the severe exposure we decided to recoat with Cedar Semi again. Next email will have the after recoating photos.

Tony, Beautiful work, those pictures are terrific. Two tone jobs are a lot of work, and more difficult to maintain, but the results can be stunning. You should enter that job over at the WoodPro's contest. Go to http://www.thewoodpros.com

Diamond Jim, That "BLEACH" photo is hilarious! And that ocean view is getting me thinking about a mid summer vacation.

Lyle, We only use Shurflo pumps, or on occasion backpack sprayers for small jobs, when applying chemicals. Decksters are reserved for applying stain only. I've got one unit that is about 7 yrs. old and it has only pumped RS stain. We do not downstream for wood, cannot get the chemical ratios to my liking.

Adrian, I think it is a nice color for PT. Holy cow, you're doing jobs like that alone? You're by far a better man than I. That much solo work would put me into retirement real fast!