RPetry

Greg, Good for you. That is great. I do the same thing. When you have the time, interest, and can find a good web resource, do it yourself. There is a ton of info here on TGS.

Wet wood Monday. Went up to ACR Products, my distributor, mechanic, mentor, and friend since the day I started this business. What a greeting. ACR, Ready Seal, Windsor WoodCare, and Heineken. Perfect together. Tom and Barbara, I love 'ya. Especially Barbara.

Beth, Please do. That is a fun pic. Been a while since a 5 point infraction. I'll wait for winter. Is it OK to have fun with WRAPI, ESI, and Michigan?

Sounds good. What Charlie said. Greg, are you thinking about getting into the business?

Beth, Don't take yourself out of the running, ya' little wood minx! Barbara is very seductive, but you are the tough one. Love a challenge! Yeah, if me and my hearing aids could land a nice fish! Hah!, gettin' old is fun.

Capitalism at work. Don't knock it, opportunity can make fortunes. Kind of fun getting old. I lived in Denver during the '73-'74 fuel meltdown. Complain and moan all you want, but you have not lived through a supply crisis. Check a 20 - 30 - 40 year chart on gasoline prices verses home prices, food prices, property taxes, CPI, or many other prices. The oil patch has always been boom and bust. There may be a relief after the change of year.

Matt, Yeah, noticed those finish nails. The ends are fastened with what looks like 16 penny nails. What is amazing is that no nails, finish or otherwise, are popped or loose. Talk about a stable wood! The current owner has been in the home for ~ 5 years and has not touched the deck. Says it "looks about the same" as when she moved in.

Kirk, Yes, the real china bristle brushes are made from hog hair and the material comes from China. Liebco among others makes good ones. Quite expensive, but IMO worth it. Will last a very long time if cared for after use.

Matt, I guess we are kind of lucky back here in the East. Bread and butter work is PT SYP and to a lesser extent, Western Red Cedar. Have been working on quite a bit of red mahogany over the past few years, along with a sprinkling of ipe', teak furniture, various maranti's, and "who knows" Asian hardwoods. Quite a bit of variety. I am going to call that website that Peirce linked later today. They may be able to supply a few replacement boards and with pictures, help further identify the approximate age and origin of the redwood. Met with the owner yesterday, and we have the job. There is a possiblity that this deck was built in the 1920's! I have to admit that this job has got me real excited. In 8 years, only worked on one old growth redwood deck and it is a beautiful wood. In general, America's natural resources have been poorly managed in the past. It was the old "gold rush, make a quick buck, conqueror the continent" mentality. But I think that has evolved, and is slowly changing for the better. Did not know redwood was fire resistant. Sounds like you have a real nice home! Having fun already and am really looking forward to restoring this "antique" deck. Scheduled for mid to late August. I'm not sure what product we will use for stain. Probably wait and see how the wood cleans up. The Ready Seal redwood only formula does work great, and looks good. But redwood is a Northwest US indigenous tree, and Armstrong-Clark is company located in the heart of the Sierra Nevada range. Might be appropriate, we'll see. Thanks for your help and input Matt.

Matt, You West coast guys are the friggin' cat's meow. You guys do know your redwood. Those of us on the East coast can always help you with pressure treated Southern Yellow Pine! Stopped by today, and put just a drop of RS on the dried wood. Immediately turned black. Seen this once before with old redwood, I am convinced. The paraffinic oil just pushes the natural resins/oil to the surface in a heartbeat. Yeah, it is nearly certainly redwood. Got a call this morning from a Western contractor, an old salt, that thinks it may not be just old growth redwood, but old growth redwood that is all heartwood! Holy smokes, this kind of wood is unheard of here in the East. Peirce Fitchette of Ready Seal emailed a link that is further indicative. Look at: OGA - Lumber Thanks Peirce. A few pics of the dried wood attached. If anyone has differing opinions, please post. Now it is off to find 2 matching boards of the same wood for replacement. One is 2"x12"x12 feet! Even the joists and stringers are redwood. This is an old, very old deck. Gotta' love the wood business. Feel like a history detective on PBS! Thanks to all. A few more pics attached.

Pete, You and your customer may not like this. I have become convinced that ipe' needs a year of no stain weathering, at least here in NJ, until any good product will last close to a year. It is the nature of the wood. So much natural oils, resins, whatever, prevents any oil stains from lasting a while. Let it weather. The only other option is to strip the bejesus out of it, maybe twice, to try and remove the natural stuff close to the surface. A year or 10 years of not being treated is not going to do a thing to ipe' aside from making it more acceptable to an oil stain. The wood is that good.

Rod, Ok, thanks. I just want to correctly ID the species of wood. Will probably meet with the owner today. If we get the job, there are some rotted endgrain step treads that we will trim off. I'll send a sample to FPL for positive identification.

Beth & Jim, Thanks. My first guess also. But does redwood have tight knots? I do recall seeing old redwoods in Northern California 30 years ago. Seem to remember very tall, straight tree trunks, with no branching, until the top canopy. Need help, west coast woodies!

Great advice. The first time you treat softwoods with Ready Seal, douse it. Get as much stain into the wood as it will take. 2 yrs. later, a decent amount on the horizontal wood, usually 50-60% stain quantity of the initial application. Softwoods only. Hardwoods much less stain. Not sure about a pad, try natural bristle brushes. Big ones.

Quick clean picture. Still wet and not yet brightened.

"Post in the ground" picture. Nice.

Scott, No need to special order it. I can get it from Ca. Only need a 5'er for a cedar job next month. Thanks.

Scott, Would that order also include Armstrong-Clark's Super Cedar Blend color? Not sure if it is a regular stock pigment mix.

Carlos, Boat work, right up my alley! Restaurant work, ie: hoods and dumpster pads, is all yours!

Hey Thad, We were on Ambergris Cay in Belize maybe 10 yrs. ago. Terrific scuba diving, but needed a boat to snorkel. Back then, about the only food available was chicken or grouper. Slept in a cassada right on the beach. Nicaragua is also being touted as the new Costa Rica. Not sure of either for any real estate purchase, as their political history has not been too stable. Carlos, Those prices on the site you linked are maybe 1/3rd of similar homes in my area of NJ. Bet the property taxes are a lot less too!

Another fun job started last week. Trex lasts forever. No muss, no fuss. Expensive as all get go, more than high quality exotic wood. But gee, Mr. Homeowner, just think of all the $ you will save over the years on maintenance! Composites, at least the older generation of products, was a well marketed hoodwink of deck builders and the public alike. Glad they were taken to the cleaners on class action lawsuits. These poor customers. Not only is the floor a mess, the Trex has expanded to the point of no drainage. They have free ice skating rink in the winter and nice huge puddles in the summer after a rain. The cedar balustrade has some foul oil over a failed waterbased stain. To add insult to injury, under all that the cedar substrate is mildew stained, probably from the infamous Behr's oil stain debacle. I pity the public. Poorly served by product manufacturers, builders, handymen, and so called pressure washers. The smoke in the 2nd pic is coming out of my ears! Thanks to Diamond Jim Foley of Ct. and Tony Szabo of Midwest Mobile Washers for their suggestions on restoring composites. This job will be spotless, at least for a few months, when we are finished.

Greg, Natural cedar, medium red, or light brown Ready Seal stains on cedar, particularly older, weathered cedar, do look good. I like the contrast with the gray Trex but would never build any deck with composite. It is no replacement for good, real wood.

Carlos, Thank you for the kind wishes. It has been a wonderful 20 yrs. and hope we have many more. Could not agree more. I have been slowly floating the idea of checking out Costa Rica as a 2nd home in the winter, and coming back to NJ for the spring - summer wood season. But neither of us have been there yet. Judy would probably consider Bonaire, but I think I would get ansy on a small island after a while and it is undoubtedly much more expensive. Plus, it is kind of hard leaving friends and family for 5 months of the year.

Actually kind of like the look of the gray Trex with the cedar balustrade. The wood is clear western red cedar, stained with Ready Seal, natural cedar color. Odd, but the Trex floor will get dirty in a few months, and probably should be cleaned twice a year. If it was wood and stained correctly, it would be "cleaner" in appearance and need servicing once every two years! So which is more "maintenance free"?

Actually, we do see white cedar here. Only white cedar fences. And we do next to nil of fence work.