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Now now - the weather is a ***** to get around. I typically wait for the perfect weather to stain - why risk the final product and an unhappy customer. However, as much as we try our best the weatherfolk can be wrong and mother nature throws a curve ball. I had rain come 4 hours after applying AC and we ran back and tarped the deck because it poured for some time - darn that Great Lakes weather! The stain s holding with no ill effects to the final product so far :)

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I certainly want to get to the level on knowledge you guys have and I'm here learning it alone ( along side you gurus :) ) Beth n Rod - want to start by saying nice avatar pic of the blue and yellows, are they yours? You mentioned sanding must be done in a way to eliminate the splotchy look of the stain... What causes this? Yes, I am in the process of getting the right tools ( and strippers ) however I have seen the splotchy look before ( I'm on my knees with a 5" hand orbital - poke fun of me its ok ). Hand sanded the entire floor, stained and it became spltochy, customers were happy but now that you've mentioned it I know I must of done something wrong ( just don't tell them :peaceful: ) Here is a case from today - saw the work that needed to be done. The wood is very old ( customer wants to keep the wood and only stain it - still solid just beat up ), gray, beat up, gouged, checked, warped and so on and so forth. Reminants of some film forming stain on it but most clear and gray. Would this be the straegy for the deck... I would first use a stripper to clean it, neutralize, let dry, drill in any exposed screws/nails, use a square buff sander to level the playing feild, run the osborne brush or 3M buffer over it and then apply stain. Good lord I have so many questions and I don't even know where to start...

Here are some pictures of our work. This is the kitchen/living room from a complete gut job we did this winter. Opened up the space and modernized the house. This deck was torn down from the owners old house and brought to his new place. The horizontals were peeling and the customer insisted we don't touch the railings and balusters. The final product came out great. I undersold myself on this job. Old deck with serious stains on it - customer couldn't beleive we brought it back to life. Tough job here... lots of covering of vegetation/fence to prevent any damage. Owner didn't like the color until her designer friend came and said it was a perfect match for the house. A small deck surrounded by vegetation and rock gardens... wish I took more pictures of the entire yard instead of just the deck.

Hey guys and gals. I'm the son of a general contractor based out of Toronto - we do kitchens, bathrooms, basements most of the time and I find myself restoring and staining exterior wood ( decks, cottages, docks, fences, etc. ) here and there. This year I am planning on taking the wood restoration to a new level for numerous reasons - working alongside my father can be difficult at times, working outside is much more enjoyable and the satisfaction I get from restoring wood is quite tremendous which I'm sure most of you feel the same way. I never risk anything on the job - proper procedure in order to get 100% customer satisfaction. I've done a handful of jobs with knowledge I gained from here ( along with lessons that came from experience ) and as a result I have some super happy customers. So far so good - knock on freshly stained wood. This is year two. Most of my customers have the typical " my painter stained my deck last year and its peeling" scenario so we come in, strip, neutralize, sand and stain. I'm a detail *****, no doubt about it but from readnig through the forums here I sense I am doing something wrong. Again, want to make my customers happy, happy happy. My issue ( concerns? ) lies within how I remove stain and the how the wood looks afterwards. I use store bought Behr stripper for stain removal - for all jobs. I've had decks where I applied a light shot of it and others where 2 layers of different colored top coats were removed after 2 washes consisting of heavy scrubbing and heavy application. It works but I feel there is room for improvement in this area because I always create lots of fur. I think I must be gauging the amount of stripper needed incorrectly and using the wrong stripper for different applications. Sometimes I need to blast the pressure washer to full to strip away the stain and it raises the grain. I'm sanding all the time because of this... Am I screwing up dwell time on the different stains I'm removing? Using the wrong product? Keep reading through the backpages rookie and learn more? Do you guys remove all the fur? I find getting between spindles/balusters very difficult but I manage using a Dremel like tool ( name escapes me right now )... Am I'm worrying too much about the sanding part of things? Look forward to contributing to the forums :)