RPetry

Sweet Ken. Like the ipe' shadowbox on the end of the porch. Welcome back!

Daniel, At this point, I am not sure. First, our "spot" mold/mildew happened on a new, PT deck. And only in the one shaded area. It was the only new PT we have done in about 3 yrs., so I have nothing to compare with RS or AC. I have not gotten back to the, Jim's term, "blackendecker" mahogany job. It does not look good but a spot test with bleach should reveal more.

Stopped by to look at 3 mahogany and 2 cedar RS jobs done both this year and last in one neighborhood. Found no sign of the "spot" mold. On the way home, looked at a cedar Armstrong-Clark we did this summer. Again, no evidence of a problem. And this deck has T&G vertical skirting directly into the ground.

Ka-boom! My wife was in elementary education her entire career. Just starting out after college, she was a reading teacher for a few years in a poor school system in East Orange, NJ under the federally funded Title 1 program. One of her students was named, first and middle, Formica Dinette. Unfortunately, her last name was not Table. Another boy was named Alterail, as in "alter rail" found in a church. Moving on into suburban school systems, one girls' name was Hillary Tinkle. Hah! One day a boy, Max Marter, came up to her crying. Poor kid was being incessantly teased by the other children, calling him "Max Marter the Farter"!

My wife returned from Italy with some interesting stuff, including this small cutting board. The wood is from the olive tree, quite heavy and hard. Would love to see a deck built with this wood!

Diamond Jim, It has been very wet here in Central NJ the past 10 days. We have a ton of RS jobs we did for the first time this year, PT, cedar, and mahogany. Also have 2 cedar Armstrong Clark's. May have to drive around a day and check all of them out.

Daniel, Between you and Diamond Jim, the both of you gave me the creeps. Stopped by to look at the only 2 ESI stain jobs we did this year. The first one was a 3 or 4 month old PT deck, stained with ESI's Timber Oil. Prepped with Restore (sodium percarbonate) wood cleaner, brightened with citric acid, and rinsed well. Normal prep. Two separate apps of Timber Oil into the wood. It was at 12% moisture from a Delmhorst meter when stained. Had a call back and put down a 3rd Timber Oil application on the lower deck. No big deal, its new wood. And this part of the deck is nearly sitting on the ground, with a bare soil base. Russell sent me the stain gratis, without a clue. Came home after the estimate and there it was on my doorstep. Gave the stain to the customer, one other reason I stopped by today was to give them the remainder of the stain. Cleaning out inventory for winter storage. This job was completed on July 7th of this year. Today, the floor is very faded and blotchy, but again, new PT wood close to the ground. This deck gets a ton of sunlight for most of the day. Horizontals are fine. But in one corner that is shaded, see the first picture. Look familiar? Something is wrong. It is not paraffinic oil. Paraffinic oil is a byproduct of petroleum, nothing close to a vegetable or flax seed that makes up linseed oil. We have been using another paraffinic oil stain for six years without this problem. But then again, we rarely work on new wood. Something is wrong. Either new PT wood, kiln dried or not, is infected with a mold or mildew. Or there is something in the Timber Oil promoting mildew/mold growth. Or, there is a new species of mildew/mold infesting the East coast. The 2nd ESI job is a red mahogany, stripped, neutralized, rinsed, and stained with WoodTux in mid June of this year. Does not look all that great after 6 months, but without a bleach mix on hand cannot tell if the dark areas are mildew/mold or just dirt/weathering.

Good idea. It will work as is. Have some great nieces and nephews here over Thanksgiving, may need some discipline...

Seal partial 5'ers of stain. Just did a few....

A lost three-toed sloth?

Shelly, A few things you may want to consider for the future. On a job of that size and duration, collecting only 25% prior to completion is just not good business. Progress payments should have been collected. Do you have a contract? Something is very wrong if the customer expected a solid stain appearance and you applied a semi-transparent. A contract should at minimum specify the stain manufacturer and type to be used. We often apply a few color samples to wood after it is prepped for final customer selection. I would never stain exterior wood, large job or small, without final customer approval.

Kevin, After more than 30 yrs., I do not think I need some test to determine party affiliation. You must be young. The Republican party has a long tradition of being centrist on social issues, especially in the selection of Presidential candidates. In my lifetime, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Nixon, Ford, Reagan in governance, and G.W. Bush were all "middle of the road" on social policies. It can be easily argued that John McCain was the most centrist Republican candidate of those running for the nomination in this election. The Republican party has long been a home to libertarians, and it remains so.

Thanks Bahamas! Although I did not vote for Sen. Obama, I am proud of America too. I never thought this country could overcome historical racial prejudice and elect a non white to the highest office in the land in my lifetime. He has enormous practical problems, as well as high expectations to overcome. All Americans should not only hope and pray, but put aside political differences, and work to help this new executive administration through some very difficult times ahead.

No surprise, my generation has been eclipsed. A changing of the guard, the post baby boomers now take up the mantle of power. I have been a Republican virtually all of my adult life due to economic philosophy. The party has veered too far to the right on social issues, and seems unable to govern in a centrist, forward oriented manner. We have earned this repudiation. I truly hope President elect Obama has the wisdom, fortitude, and ability to be a good leader. The man himself is clearly intelligent. How intellect and fine rhetoric translates to governance will be crucial. It is economic policy that is of greatest concern. My generation has demanded entitlements that are now law but unfunded. Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Social Security are the unaddressed elephant in the corner of the room, and it is going to take incredible advances in medicine and economic growth to fulfill these programs. My generation has burdened the younger generations with a huge financial liability. But you know what? I'm probably too much of an optimist but historically America has been able to overcome, even thrive, with great changes in politics, economics, and seemingly unfathomable problems.

From virtual to the real thing. Got to my poll at 6:15 AM this morning and the place was already crowded. Been in the same district 21 years and have never seen anything close to the turnout this morning. Please do others a courtesy. Make up your mind, and read the ballot before you vote. It is shameful to spend an inordinate amount of time in the booth reading or whatever while many are waiting in line to cast their ballots. If you haven't done your homework or can't figure out how to press some buttons, don't penalize those waiting. Casting a ballot should take less than 30 seconds.

John, We used EacoChem's Stripper Cream for the first time last month. This is a combination of potassium hydroxide (KOH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The stripper cream is extremely caustic, almost dangerously so. It effectively removed 95% of an intact solid latex stain with a primer (presumably oil) in one pass, as well as a alkyd solid stain covered with Behr's semi trans natural w/silicone. I think the KOH made the difference as a very hot "boosted" sodium hydoxide would not touch the latex-primer, and was only effective on the alkyd-silicone areas of the floor that were already failing. I would be cautious as KOH may well remove the underlying solid stain on the T-111.

Mike, Might be best if you can determine what type of solid stain is currently on the deck. Does it emulsify at all with a test area of sodium hydroxide stripper? If not, it could be an acrylic stain. If it is an acrylic, you would be ill advised to use a solid oil based stain.

Daniel, Sulfuric acid followed by a sodium bicarbonate neutralizer is certainly not a typical prep for exterior wood. But I guess if you grinded it down to bare wood, chem prep would make little difference in stain appearance or longetivity.

Daniel, No. Red mahogany, unless new, accepts a lot of oil. We get 2 yrs. before maintenance with red mahogany when using Ready Seal, the same as PT, cedar, and redwood. Are the "black" problems you are experiencing evident from this year's iteration of WoodTux?

Jim, You mentioned garage doors turning black with WoodTux stain applied within 4 months. Were these door done with this year's WoodTux formula? Reason I ask is we did one job this year with WoodTux, a large red mahogany deck where the owner desired that "look". Reason I ask, I'll have to schedule a time slot next spring for a possible strip and restain. Anyone else having this problem with this season's WoodTux? Thanks.