RPetry

Matt, That is hilarious, probably more so as it is not far from the truth. Bryan, Boy, I have done that numerous times over the years. It is funny, some customers are offended while others seem to accept the truth. Usually land the latter, and sometimes the former. Just cannot learn to keep quiet when I see a botched job.

Some customers do not have a clue to what they own. Looked at this job a while ago, and was appalled at the condition of this deck. The wood is knotty western red cedar. Have not figured out the value of this wood but do know that new WRC here runs ~$3 a linear foot for 5/4 x 6 deck boards. Do the math and this deck is worth a ton of money today. Some schmuck put down a "Behr's" quality semi oil, and the owners followed up that mistake by applying an water base clear acrylic over top of it without stripping. What a mess. Shameful to abuse such nice wood. Stripped with ACR 760, ACR 633ADD, and ACR's "Booster" surfactant. A bit of sanding was needed on the spindles and spots on the floor. Stained with Ready Seal light brown, IMO a terrific color for knotty WRC.

Kirk, ACR Products unfortunately named their products where it gets confusing. ACR Booster is actually a foaming agent. When added to an NaOH stripper, it thickens it somewhat and keeps the stripper wet longer. Their 633ADD is the additive that actually makes the NaOH stripper stronger, or "boosts" the mix. On this job, we used both in conjunction with ACR 760 NaOH stripper, which is very similar to Bob's F-18. On this job, we used 8 oz. / gal. of all three products mixed together. Let dwell for 15 - 20 minutes and pressure wash rinsed. Only one stripping on this job removed most of the old acrylic top coat and oil stain underneath. The floor did not "fir" up but there were maybe 10 or so spots that needed spot sanding to remove patches of old acrylic stain. The vertical balustrade wood took more prep work. It does and did "fir" to a much greater degree than the deck floor, which is usual for cedar. In this case we quickly sanded the spindles/fascia with random orbital sanders, and used a Makita with 3M defelting pads on the 2 inside surfaces of the spindles. Hope this helps.

Beth, We use ACR 760 NaOH as opposed to HD-80, but the results are similar. Along with ACR 633ADD "strengthener" at 8 oz. a gal., the mix will remove a single layer of acrylic or two of a solid oil stain in one pass. The ACR "Booster" foamer when added really helps on vertical wood and/or keeping the mix wet and working on hot, sunny days.

Blakefan87, Hmm, 20 hrs. is a lot of time to strip and sand a 200 sq. ft. deck. But lets do the math, and see how much you lost or saved. Just for comparison, let's say that to remove the old cedar and install new, it would take the exact amount of time, 20 hours. Probably not too far off if it took that long to prep the existing cedar. Good stainless steel fasteners, and stainless should be mandatory on cedar, might cost another $50. Compared to the $100 you have actually spent on prepping, you are now down $50. Assuming decent grade western red cedar is the same cost in Wisc. as NU, your "true" cost is the cost of new wood. For a 200 sq. ft. deck floor, you would need ~400 linear ft. of 5/4 x 6 WRC at $3 per linear ft. That is $1200. I would guesstimate that you have saved ~ $1150. Congrats!

A-C press in Extreme How-To magazine. Welcome to Extreme How To, DIY - Do it Yourself, Home Improvement, Home Decorating Looks like Jake Clark and Company are getting some national exposure.

Matt, You have urethane, we have ancient old growth redwood that is just plumb loaded with tannins. Peirce and I played around with it a bit yesterday afternoon, and it is just tough to get this 50+ yr. old redwood deck wood to look good enough in prep. Will see in an hour or so, but looks like we will both be on our knees, belt sanding the snot out of the wood. 'Course that raises up the tannins right to the surface. But hitting the wood in a test area with Ready Seal #80 brightener after sanding seems to knock it down enough where the medium red redwood only formula looks like it should.

Unless western red cedar is substantially cheaper in Wisconsin compared to NJ, not true. We are paying $3 a linear foot for 5/4 x 6 decking boards. Add in the cost/time of demolition and installation, and stripping a final single coat of latex is peanuts.

a) just a guess without seeing the job, but ~ $1200 would be deemed reasonable here in NJ. b) to do what? Strip and stain? One to strip, brighten, and sand. One to stain. If you are down to the last layer of latex, a retail stripper product named Stripex-L made by Napier may do a decent job on removal.

Oh man Matt, looks like you have met your match. If Stripsol does not make a dent, I doubt that NaOH is going to do much. A company here in NJ with the name of Back To Nature makes a lot of different specialty strippers, you may want to give them a call later in the day. We have used their BFSII to strip out multiple layers of acrylic in one pass, but have never run into urethane. A bit odd. You're on the west coast working on ipe', while Peirce and I are here in NJ working on a 50 yr. old deck, constructed of old growth redwood! Don't think I want to switch jobs.

Started on this monster this week. Pretty old PT SYP deck, with a failing Cabot's solid oil stain. We removed all 357 spindles as they never strip well, and will be dipping the new ones in Ready Seal medium red and installing. An easy strip with ACR 760 NaOH, ACR 633ADD additive, and ACR "Booster", which is a thickener/foamer/wetting agent. All chems mixed at 8 oz./gallon. Citric acid brightener was applied at 6 oz./gallon. As is usual, still had some spot sanding to do, especially on the fascia where the old spindles dripped and around the edge of the deck floor underneath the balustrade. The nice thing about removing the spindles is that all wood is accessible and easy to sand. Weather permitting, we will begin staining tomorrow. This job will take at least 30 gallons of Ready Seal, with two heavy applications into the horizontal wood. Peirce of Ready Seal, and Tom of ACR Products love these big ones!

Jeff, Funny story. There are certainly a lot of different types of customers. That is one of the fun and interesting aspects of doing residential work.

Mike, Looking good. For most stains on ipe', and certainly Wood Tux, a light sanding with a random orbital really does wonders for the look of the final finish. Just to be clear, you sand prior to staining.

Daniel, You are correct, the 633ADD is their "strengthener" or commonly called "booster" for NaOH. It makes the mix stronger. ACR also carries a liquid additive with the name "Booster". It is actually a foamer agent, that thickens the NaOH mix and keeps the mix wet longer. Great for vertical wood and difficult strips.

Matt, I hope so. But being the oils in the stain are 1/2 linseed, 1/2 paraffinic, not completely sure at this time. In some colors, there is a lot of pigment, and I think some of the pigments are clay as opposed to iron oxides. Multiple maintenance applications may really darken the color and hide the grain. At some point a hard percarb cleaning or light NaOH stripping may be necessary. Maybe Jake Clark or Mark of Armstrong-Clark can weigh in here. A lot of wood contractors are wondering the same thing.

While working on a knotty WRC deck, next door neighbor inquires about her stairs. As we had the equipment on site, stripped and stained their stairway. Wood is old, clear western red cedar with a ton of tannin still present in the wood. Stain is Armstrong-Clark, super cedar color. Single application, about 3/4ths of a gallon. I like it.

Wood restoration is a fun business. After 8 yrs. doing this, you can still learn a lot and get thrown for a loop on occasion. Stopped by this afternoon to look at a call on redoing a small ipe' deck. Got all the info previously on the phone, the customers were not at home today. Take a look at the pics. This stain has been on this ipe' deck for a little over 2 years. 2 years!. I have never seen an oil based stain last half this long and look as good as the attached pictures. Part of the story is that the customer let the wood just weather after the builder threw on some Messmer's after construction. The Messmer's was gone in 3 months. The customer let it weather for close to 14 months before cleaning and applying a waterbased stain. The stain is Wolman's EHT. It is water based, I called Zinsser on Friday to confirm. Shocking, but interesting. If they take the bid, they want the same stain. Hard to change, as we have never deviated from oils, but I will comply. Should be interesting to see how it looks fully stripped, sanded, and restained. Stripping should be fairly easy. Last pic is ACR's 760 NaOH at 8 oz./gal., and a dwell time of 10 minutes. A quick sanding, and a single china bristle app. of a Wolman water based stain. Never thought in a decade or two of years....

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Mike, Should have called. We work for beer. Lots of very good beer hand brewed by Trappist monks in isolated, feudal Belgium monasteries. If RAD is sodium percarbonate based, which it very likely is, the answer is no. The mix will lose a good bit of cleaning power within 5 or 6 hours after mixing.

Stripper will not "neutralize" anything but a very strong acid. RAD is from what I understand, primarily sodium percarbonate based, a mild caustic. Stripper is very caustic, high on the pH scale. I am sure you may know that if you happened to get any on your skin. I believe your "problem" is one of perception. Ipe' remains dark in color until fully dried. Judge your cleaning after the wood has dried overnight. Rinse well one more time with hose pressure, let dry and put down your acid. Then stain away.

Matt, Good for you, and what an attitude! Congrats. These tough strip jobs are not so bad, eh? Very curious on this Stripsol from Eacochem. Let us know how it works, with pictures please!

Lyle, Thanks so much for the pictures. To be honest, am somewhat appalled to put any water based stain on any horizontal exterior wood. Do not think it is going to happen, have not heard back from the customer. Bid the job quite high to appease my conscience!

Matt, Congratulations. You have just won 5 gals. of Ready Seal stain. You are one of few that can spell Peirce's name correctly! Kevin, The nature of the job determined removing and replacing the spindles, not structure. That was not an issue. Note that this was a solid oil, dripped heavily over floor and fascia in many areas. To get it all off, knew it would take a bit of sanding. Figured it would just be more efficient to blow off the old spindles and replace. In that way you can get to all areas to sand. With old PT SYP spindles, you can never remove them and try and reinstall. It is bad wood that turns to garbage wood over 10 or 12 years, when not maintained. On hindsight, may have been more productive to just strip the old ones, and use a Makita on the inside of the 2 x 2's. Then again, we had to re-level part of the balustrade, which would not have been possible without removing a lot of old spindles. I don't know, it was a tough job but priced accordingly. Glad it is finished.