bigchaz

That stinks Jim, hope you can get them back

Why didn't you enter Jim?

You should really try the Armstrong mahogany on ipe Adrian.... You can get much better than 3 to 5 months Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

John you posted pictures of a really nice house you stained this year I think, that project looked really nice

And here is after we stained with a 50/50 blend of Armstrong Amber and TWP 200 Gold. Customer wanted to replicate the original color from the sherwin williams stain. Front porch, and back deck wraps around two sides of the rear deck with main central section with staircase. You can see the floor where the strange dark spots were has been evened out. Customer was thrilled and I received this email earlier (always the best part about this business!): "Good morning Charlie, We were so pleased with the way the deck finished up and all the final little things you did while we were gone. Thank you so much for a wonderful job. As I type, we are sitting on the deck enjoying the wonderful weather. We have not spent time on the deck in years."

Ok ok, here's a deck that was about 1 year old was stained with a sherwin william deckscapes oil based toner. Some painter put two coats on, never cleaned the deck and it had these crazy dark and black spots that I could only assume was mildew throughout the finish. Stripped the old stain off which was a very light cedar/natural color and then hammered the strange spots with strong bleach, and strong acid. Brought it back about 95%, and a good floor sanding helped. Here are two of the before pictures of the weird dark spots and my guys washing the back deck.

It wont make a big difference now or Springtime...either way you still have to clean it. Are you somewhere that has a really harsh winter? Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Its just fuzz which is little wood fibers that came up from cleaning. Best to sand them all off. You can stain them but they will dry lighter and can keep the stain from getting down as far into the wood. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I think I did two or three decks this year, maybe I took a picture I can enter haha ;)

Not my area of expertise of course so I'm putting this in DIY section. Any of you guys do front door work (Dan, Jim, Rick?). No idea what type of wood this is though....it may impact my procedure for restoration. It has really no knots at all and the grain appears very short (doesn't seem travel the whole length of the wood). Looks pretty yellow in spots I sanded it (last two pics).

I can get more pictures if it helps to see something in particular. I just close upped some random spots on the door

Hi HomeDIYGuy, it is kind of confusing but by formulation the Armstrong Amber is considered a Semi-Transparent. However...and this is where it can be confusing, the Amber is designed to look like a transparent stain. So the benefit is that you get the appearance of a transparent that shows the wood grain very well but you get the protection of a semi transparent stain which holds up longer. This is because it uses a special pigment that does not mask the wood. Most semi transparents are more opaque and will mask some of the wood's character but the Amber as you can see in the photo does a good job showing the wood color. However even though it looks like a transparent is has 3 times the pigment and is similar in formulation to a Semi-Solid!

You may want to start keeping records on color and stain in the event the customer has you come redo the deck. It also lets you know which stain is performing better over time. Ready Seal brochure I have doesn't show Pecan either so I dont know where this mystery color is coming from Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I dont think Armstrong has a color called Pecan?? Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Here is a picture of Armstrong Amber on new Pressure Treated

I really don't mess with paint stripping or heavy acrylics most of the time so we use GSKs TimberStrip pro. The Timber pro line is really nice, 30lb pails which I prefer on the trailer. Also use 50lb bags of Potassium Hydroxide flakes for heavier strips. I always keep raw chems on hand for backup so we have Sodium Percarb and Oxalic in bulk. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Yea sometimes if it is hot enough the wood dries pretty quick. Some older PT will hold lots of moisture and take longer to dry. Get a moisture meter and you can check the moisture content of the wood. Ideally a day of drying time is best but in the summer when it was 100 degrees out, I honestly had decks practically dry enough to stain by the time we finished rolling up the pressure washing hoses!

No customer is going to be thrilled about waiting months. It cant rain every single day, you just have to be ready to work the second wood is dry. We use oil based stain like Armstrong Clark, as long as we stain dry wood it can take a rain within an hour and still be fine. So even if it rains overnight after we finish it is OK. Also can try running fans to dry the wood out quicker Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Looks good, if you do more there are far cheaper alternatives than oxyclean and brand name brightener. you can buy bulk chemicals (sodium percarbonate = oxycelan) and oxalic or citric acid for brightener.

It can be problematic and recurring so the only sure fire way is to replace the boards. You can scrape the excess and clean with turpentine to try and wipe off the surface sap but i find that the sap veins can be deep and continue to leach out. If you are redoing with a solid you could probably try to just sand off and just hope for the best. Penetrating oil stains are the worst since they help push the sap up Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

That's not residue it's just the color of the fuzz. Problem solver is a bleach based cleaning solution so you may have to sit on there too long. It looks fine though and light sanding like you already did will do the trick Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Well there's that.... ;)

It's like going a month without showing...gonna get dirty quick. "New" wood in particular may have been sitting for months at a lumber yard in the rain or weeks on a customer's property in the dirt. It also contains lots of chemicals from the pressure treating process that leach out on the surface. Or the carpenters building it get dirt and mud when they walk on it. Properly prepared wood will better accept stain and result in a longer lasting finish

We use Armstrong Clark and TWP, both are good stains. You will need to strip any old stain off before applying either of those stains. I cant speak for other companies but I usually hesitate to do staining over someone elses prep. It can be harder to say for certain how the stain will perform if the prep was done by someone else so you may run into that. For good penetrating oil stains 2 year maintenance is pretty standard as well Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I dont know how to do that fancy stuff. If someone is that desperate to steal it, I'll ask them to remove if I find out. If they live close to me, well I can track people down. And I own firearms