plainpainter

I always want to meet customers. You have no idea with whom you are jumping into bed with if you don't meet customers for estimates.

That's a good thought - have you actually tried it? Still wouldn't fix the problems of being able to downstream, unless you had 10 of them already lined up?

The only thing that absorbs into new pressure treated is that cretowood stuff that scott sells. I am experimenting with it.

I cleaned my front porch a couple of months ago with 12 oz/gallon of F-18. And the wood didn't look dark a couple of days later - and now that I have unleashed my floor sander on it - it looks as light as some soft pine or alder wood you find at home depot - makes me wonder what the benefit of acid would be in this case?

The thing about the trades is that it's all just about odds. Like betting on horses, you can make money betting on horses even if you are right only 30% of the time. Some people will just never be sold on anything other than price.

There you go again, Fenner, trying to reel reality back in.

Do what works. They put 'chemicals' into their dishwasher, clothes washer, shower, sinks. People put 'chemicals' just about everywhere - so why should they suddenly freak out if we're going to put them on the outside of their homes?

John - I hate it when this happens to a house, then they let 4 to 5 years go by so it's covered in mildew and algae. And then another contractor shows up and is faced with this after cleaning it up - and the homeowners act all surprised it looks like this.

I screwed around with my arrowline 3650psi unloader - and there is a lower nut that is hidden that you can adjust downward - and I dabbled with it and on my gauge saw pressure spike to as much as 5000psi. Then I adjusted the nut back up - and then reassembled the spring over it. You can get higher pressures, it's just these suckers are set from the factory to max out at 3650, and all you can do is adjust the upper nut to lower the pressure from that. But if you start dissambling it - you can find that lower nut that will give you even higher pressures - I would dissamble, remove the spring and turn that nut back out and reassemble.

This attitude that is prevalent in the trades I just never understood. Why would you want to upsell something that will prolong the useful life of house wash - when you know the upsell would never recuperate the profits of more frequent cleanings. I've had dozens of folks inquiring about warrantees this year on house washings - it just blows my mind guys are going around trying to sell wash services with warrantees? Why? The painting trades is going through a warrantee phase right now - and 3 homes in my neighborhood under 3 different companies have already been 'warrantied' already, one house twice in 3 years - 4 more years go on the warrantee!!!!! Unless you really understand what you are doing - warrantees will just come back to haunt you! I'd rather just get paid to wash a house 2 years later, instead of honoring a 3 yr warrantee for free.

I've been coming to these forums for a few years now, and this wet wax treatment is something I've just never believed in. I just don't see how this kind of wax can stick to vinyl. And wasn't there some proof after a while that wax was food for mildew?

Interesting - I wouldn't have thought woodtux to be a hard strip? That's what I haven't heard over the years - and the dribbles on the side of a can that are year and two years old are still goobery. Unlike ATO and other tung oil based stains - which have rock hard dribbles on the side of a can. Does woodtux have tung oil resins? The stripping on this deck was my bad - I was lazy and downstreamed F-18 at 24ozs/gallon - which turned out to be 3 ozs/gallon by the time it came out of the gun - which is wholly unsuited for stripping ATO, even it was previously stripped by a customer. HD-80 mixed at 8 ozs/gallon and applied via a pump-up on my other mahogany deck in your other thread ken - came off pretty good, except in a few spots {underneath railing and right in the corner underneath some roofing} I think by far the absolute hardest strip which technically should start being approached by paint strippers is that Sherwin Williams oil based toner product - that stuff is like trying to lift silicone caulking - it's an utter mess! Three sequential applications of HD-80 boosted with extra surfactants and glycol - just barely gets the job removed.

Ken is referring to the inability of stains to penetrate into cedar. We all know it's not good to cut too much - but cedar is just one big pita. Loading it down with spirits is an idea to get something to penetrate. But from another point of view when you saw these products go from 550 down to 350 VOC - that was a reduction of about a quart in thinner. So right off the bat - reducing something by 25% would get you back to previous regulations. I think I just hate cedar - it furs like mad, especially end grain. And it accepts oil base stain as if the stain was a waterbourne. I have no clue why people would use the stuff - as well, there are countless times when I was fooled into thinking cedar decking was pressure treated. So if it looks close to pressure treated - why not just use pressure treated? I'd rather just use spanish cedar and soak it with cretowood - and give it an annual cleaning and forget about it.

I applied those colors after the customer attempted to strip and brighten the deck himself. I did those colors at that point just to get the ball rolling with ordering. I restripped it and brightened after that photo. But it was a nasty overapplication of ATO - and even then needed a severe sanding to look decent even after I had stripped it.

Yeah - that job turned out really nice. After an initial $400 purchase for a used floor sander and $900 in parts later - that was the first job it really worked instead of breaking down. Since I sand - I was never a purist about starting and stopping on wood - this job I ran down each board continuously with the wand. And I used HD-80 full strength with pump-up and Citralic full strength with a pump-up. And of course the A.C. stain - everything just came together nicely on that job. Here is a pic of the deck in the middle of a second application on decking - for all those that think A.C. is a one-coater - hah! And another pic of someone that dropped by to appreciate my craftsmanship.

I am also thinking about approaching cedar more from a Jim Foley perspective. F' all the percarbs or all the jib-jabber about properly neutralizing and all that other nonsense. I am just going to go back to my roots and 'burn' cedar with a strong tsp/bleach wash - and I don't care if the wood looks bone white and unnatural looking when dry. At least I know it will accept stain better.

I don't think it would help much at all. The A.C. was like water that day - seemed to be as thin as straight spirits. There is just something wacky about cedar. I almost think spirits gets in the way of absorption with cedar - as if the cedar traps the spirits and prevents anything else from entering. I puddled the stain on to the railings and decking - 40 minutes later the mahogany was bone dry ready for another coat and the cedar railings still had visible puddles. It was actually very sobering - gave me better insight as to adhesion problems with oil based primers and typical cedar clapboard siding. Now I know that wood just doesn't accept anything - deep penetrating or not.

I don't envy you - I am finding it really counterintuitive staining cedar. Nothing soaks into the stuff! Mahogany which is a real dense wood that you would think nothing would go into just swallows A.C. like no tomorrow. As dry and nicely sanded the cedar is - nothing seems to go in. Staining the cedar skirt board on the deck above was a total joke

Rick has found a way to make money using/selling Readyseal - kudos for him! What works for him works. We all have to find our own path in the end, I couldn't make readyseal work. But then again from looking at Rick's work and looking at the readyseal website - it seems they have a more complete color collection - where as I am finding that A.C. needs constant custom mixing to get a good color - the 'stock' colors are just too restrictive.

Ken here is my deck from another angle....I think in the photo the red is a little harsh - it seems like the Sierra Redwood knocked out Rustic Brown. But I think it will tone down - I will take another photo this weekend. But it doesn't look as red in real life as it does in the photos.

Here is a deck I just finished a couple of days ago used 50/50 mix of Sierra Redwood and Rustic Brown - Mahogany Decking and Cedar Balusters.

*******...you tricked me.

Very Interesting. Perhaps next time a 50/50 mix - and just let the customer know it's going to lighten up the way they want? I think Beth had a good mix - I believe it was mixed with the toner?

Rick - I think the A.C. cedar on light wood is not my favorite either - here are some test colors on really lightened/Brightened Mahogany - I kept the semi-trans along one line, and the semisolids along another. As you can see the cedar colors look pretty nasty.

Rick - how about experimenting with ammonium quaterniums instead of bleach/percarbs. I've heard they will kill the algae/mildew without changing the character of the wood.