bigchaz

Ughh here we go again... I've said it before but ill say it again...this business obviously ain't for you Dan. Maybe you need to move somewhere else and try a new career. I tell everyone that you cant go wrong with welding or diesel repair from a trade school. Why do you pressure wash? Is it for a quick buck? Probably not the best mindset for building a business. If you don't believe this industry will hold up why are you still working it? Come up with an exit soon before the sky in poor ole new england comes crashing down on you. Lemme give you an example. Look at rick petrys post earlier today. There's a guy that loves his job and shows all his customers how much he cares about restoring their wood. Customers see that in him. Do you get excited about waking up each day to close jobs and do high quality work for people? I know I and many others do. Forgetting about the "bad" economy, jerk customers, bounced checks, quiet phone, and everything else, at the end of the day do you truly enjoy PWing and or running your business? If the answer is "no" or followed by any ifs ands or buts I suggest you run as fast as you can from this business and never look back. Hundreds of people have met long term success in the PWing industry. Built up a clientele that expects and receives good quality work and receives great service from those companies. Truthfully I find it insulting that because your business has failed to meet whatever dreams you have that you come on here day in and day out to complain and place blame on the economy instead of figuring ways around it or making the decision to move along to greener pastures.

The floor color looks like a sikkens deck I stripped last year. Rails seem like a different stain altogether though....or there's been a buildup of product on the floor

I dont think that's redwood. Hopefully someone with a better eye can ring in to verify that. Those floor boards are going to be a bear to strip. Youll need a heavy application to budge those solid areas. Rails will also be hard to strip if you're not pressure washing. Any indication what the old stain was? Old stain can laying around anywhere? No need to clean the deck before stripping it. If anything do it afterward once you can see what the wood looks like underneath the old stain. You dont scrub after putting oxalic on the wood either. Once the stripping is all complete, just spray your oxalic on and let it sit a few minutes before hosing the deck down.

I didn't realize you could get that injectable stripper for a hose, but that would be an ideal choice for stripping. That Olympic wont be too tough to get off but Im not sure how the rails will work if your not pressure washing them. Scrub brush on the floor will give you the agitation you need to get the stain up but unless you can scrub all the rails I dont know that garden hose rinsing will be enough to take it off.

tried to do a sequence...before...cleaned...stained Stained pic has bad sun so its not nice enough for the website Sorry for all the pics... I had to beat greg and all his railroad ties haha

Didnt have the best sun when we finished but heres some shots that show you the color. Facing the house was all shaded so you cant see the color as well Deck surface was about 26*14 with one corner angled off. Staircase had about a dozen treads with a small platform on the bottom (about 4*4). Stairs led to a brick patio underneath

Alright well just finished a nice 2k dollar job with Armstrong clark cedar semi-trans stain. Stain went on very nice. With woodtux I would have been right around 10 gallons for this deck. I was a bit nervous with the AC because I only had 2 pails total. I ended up using under 7 gallons!! So great coverage and IMO this deck was on the dry side for most of my decks. I imagine I would have used close to a pail for newer wood. Sprays very easily. I use airless and of course you still get a cloud, but I could put it on heavy and have my guy backbrush. Didn't have a problem with over application doing one heavy coat. No problems at all with lap marks either. Penetrated quick enough where you didn't have tons of stain running down the spindles. Im not the best sprayer so I get drips underneath rail caps but with a guy backbrushing there's no problems at all. Since the stain soaks in pretty quick I did end up misting some rails later on that looked a bit light. But on most decks one heavy spraying would have been just right. Put two coats wet on wet on the floor with the pad. I tested it when it dried by putting another light coat on a few boards but the difference was unnoticeable. This tells me that my application probably gave it just the right amount of oil I didn't realize until reading the can that the wood was supposed to have 24 hours to dry. It rained the night before so most of the surface was still damp. Rails were dry to the touch so I went ahead and stained them all. Wasnt a problem at all that they weren't completely dry. The surface was damp in the morning when we got there but by 11 when we finished all the rails the floor was good to go. I shook the pail up like I do for woodtux but when I opened it, the stain still needed some mixing. This makes the pour spout kinda pointless, but for my first time using an open stain pail, I didn't have any problems. A few stirs and the color evened up in the pail and I started spraying My favorite part was the consistent color of the stain. Didn't have to worry about a huge color shift when the stain dried overnight. Wood was dry to the touch in about 30 minutes on most areas. Floor was in full sun by the time we padded it so it dried in less than 10. Did two coats with a pad on the floor (wood was 9 yrs old). Staircase appears to have been newer, but with just one coat on that the wood looked incredible. I might even consider using AC for newer wood as well as the older stuff. Used cedar semi trans which will probably be the only color I offer. Its a perfect shade of brown...not too dark not too light. And what you see when putting it on the wood is what you get when it dries. Might lighten up a bit when it soaks in but other than that the color is constant. Cedar semi gave the wood the color I like so Ill probably just stock that. I don't much care for red tones and I don't like dark dark stains on wood either. Cedar was just perfect Ill keep using woodtux on most of my newer jobs, but armstrong is definitly a new addition to the inventory to use on older wood or decks that just don't look their best. Much cheaper to use AC too than to try and moisturize old wood with 40/gallon woodtux and quicker than two stepping with timberoil. The AC stain really brought back the beauty in some of the boards that I normally wouldn't have super high hopes for. Some wood was replaced probably 2 years prior, but the stain blended everything in I didn't know how bad the oil would be, so we were super cautious about combustion with the tarps we were using. Judging from the heat of the rags if I had to guess Id say that fire is more of a risk with AC compared to WT. But we hosed down the tarps and I lay them out to dry when I get home so no problems. Just be smart and degrease stuff, you'll be fine. Used the empty metal pail to put old rags and plastic in. Perfect for the trash on a jobsite. My nose may be used to WT but the smell on AC was certainly a bit of a change for me. Stuff lingers for a while in the truck but we'll see how it smells tomorrow morning. Did a lot of leaning over the rail since the deck was high, so with my shirt smelling like it did I just put it in the burn pile.

I know it would take me more than 4 lbs of cleaner to do that deck. But thats partly because it dries quick in the NC heat. We just use more cleaner to keep the wood wet Spray the lattice with the wagner. You dont want to hand stain that stuff. We put tarps on one end of the rail when spraying from the outside to keep stain from coming through onto the house

Greg you must really like this site alot haha Order the stain tonight and I wanna see the finished deck by Sunday!:)

How is it mixed?

The semi transparent is no thicker than woodtux or maybe ready seal

Let me just warn you and your wife: You really cant be so picky about the color. Staining a deck is not like painting a house. You can't hold up a color card and expect it to look exactly like the picture. We (Apex DeckSavers) actually only offer two colors. I tell the customer they either choose something lighter or something browner. Each deck is different. The stain takes on some of the natural coloring of the wood. Older wood can often be darker, newer wood can make a stain more orange, wood that has been stripped too heavily will be lighter, etc, etc You sound like you are going back and forth because of a few shades of color. You'll be in for disappointment if you have one idea and one idea only for what you think the wood will look like. For older wood it sounds like the proper choice is semi-transparent. Keep in mind Im not an AC user, so this is simply research and my conversation with the company. It will last longer, give you a little more color to the wood, and may be a bit more forgiving in terms of application for you. There will be a bit more UV protection, probably pretty nominal. Unless you over apply the product you wont have a shine.

Cordless drill fine to use with the paddle mixer?

Jason: Really? I love the ESI square buckets. You don't get much settling so I transport it upside down and then shake it for a minute before using. They stack and ship real well too. Never had any problems. And the airless tube fits right into the cap. Only thing I don't like about the square is you can never quite get all the product out. I still have to figure out how to spray from the AC container. Do I need to pour into a container or just leave the lid off and have leaves, dirt, etc land in there? Ive only ever used the square buckets.

Looks great!

man I'm so pumped that Scott is gonna be carrying AC. Cant beat the speed or the prices. Plus Im starting to get cozy with the FedEx guy...I dont even know the UPS driver haha Bryan: Im using the cedar semi trans on a pressure treated deck 11 years old. It was stained 4 years ago so we'll strip it and put on the AC And welcome to the forum Steve

NICEEEEEEE From what Jason indicated I think cedartone will be popular since its similar in tone to the brown sugar. That may just be me though. You sticking to semi trans or stocking the whole line?

Ah bummer there's no contractor club ha

Naw when I mentioned to Jake how good Scott was, he(jake) said they have some contract for a distributor that handles a four state area or something. It means that person is the only allowed distributor of the product

..nm..

So you agreed to do work based off a year old proposal? Do your estimates not have an expiration on them? I do 14 days and after that the price might go up. Especially a year later. With new expenses I wouldn't want to do a job on a year old price. Looks great though btw

10 gallons of cedartone in the garage

Any cleaner you use to get rid of the mold is going to remove some of the gray wood and other dirt If you pay a pretty penny for a fence and don't want to take care of it, the mold and dirt is what you're going to get

Check your other post. No need to post the question twice As for preventing mildew, you need to use a better stain fortified with more mildewcide....not penofin from what Ive heard stories about

Your problem came from using a pressure washer to remove the mildew instead of a good cleaner to do the hard work. Too much pressure caused wand marks where you stopped and started Your best shot is going to be removing the old finish or sanding. Chances are if you remove the finish you probably should still sand anyway