plainpainter

I know from taking a lot of pictures - that deck probably looks better in a photo than it does in real life. Woodtux looked like that after 4 years. Heck, even timberoil looks better than that after 3 years. At least you don't have to strip it - that stain could probably be maintained

Jeff - you still brushing houses?

What I find interesting about this thread is the implicit accusation that only illegals commit crimes. I am sure if there were no illegals in this country - this crime would still be committed by native born Americans. Our penitentiary system is clogged with far more Americans than illegals. I had a guy that was working in Baltimore years ago - and at the time there was some serial killer killing women. The foreman always paired him up with this guy to do jobs - well they got a talking a lot about this murderer, and this guy asked my guy what would he do if he found the killer? Of course my guy said he would strangle this **** out of him - and the other dude laughed. Several months later the killer was apprehended, and it was the same guy that my guy worked with months on end. Never suspected. You never truly know a person. Background checks are useful, and certainly if not done - you won'd find out anything. But anyone at anytime is capable in my opinion. Not just illegals.

I have a few boards of pressure treated 5/4 decking that has been aging outside for two seasons now. I have F-10 from bob and EFC-38, I also have oxalic or esi's citralic neutralizer. My idea is to use 8 oz of either percarbonate cleaner and whatever dilution of acid you recommend - all to be applied by pump up sprayer. I have several stains as well TWP 500 series and the TWP 200 series, and I have a bunch of A.C. stain as well. But for this experiment I will buy a fresh gallon of A.C. semi-trans cedar and a gallon in the TWP 1500 series for whatever color you folks think is closest. Then I'll set this board up, stain it, and then take a picture once a day from the identical spot - or I may move the board around, but always take the picture from the same spot relative to the board itself. So I am open to suggestions to what you guys want to see, what exact steps to 'restore' the weathered boards, one coat or two, what chemical you want me to use, etc. So let the games begin.....

$75 - LOL. I trade stocks, and the biggest way to make money is to not lose it. And when you have a loss - the best thing is to cut your losses before they becom bigger losses. Showing up for a quote, and to come back, and who knows to what extent to chase her to being paid - on what planet would $75 be profitable? Even at your price of $200 that's still less than 10 cents per square foot - that's way freaking cheap in my book.

Rick, I think it will be interesting to see the weather as well, sometimes wet, sometimes overcast, sometimes underneath a foot of snow. Just have to find a spot in the yard where it won't be uninterrupted.

the purpose of taking a pictures everyday is to construct a movie, so at 24 frames a second A year's worth of photos will end up being 15 seconds long. I think it would be cool to see 2 years of weathering happen in 30 seconds.

Russell among others sells a milder acid that contains citric acids - it's selling points being that it doesn't harshly bleach the wood like oxalic and it improves your spread rate - while I am inclined to agree, I had another thought swimming in my head of mine - the one that Ipe is a hard wood to get anything to stick too. Then in my head I did one of those 'one plus one is two' moments. If oxalic 'opens' up the wood much more severely than a citric blend - wouldn't it make more sense to use that on a wood like Ipe - to clean out the 'pores' and get a better penetration of your stain, especially woodtux. And I am not really interested in people talking about the 'integrity' of the wood - and how we are here to preserve it. I am talking about the top few mils. I mean come one - not one of us hesitates to sand down a few mils when confronted by a nasty restoration job. Can't we just all agree the top few mils is fair game when it comes to getting stain to adhere? I mean in an inch you got 1,000 mils to play with before you run out. Floor sanders wack out your hardwood floors after the 3rd sanding. What's the big deal about getting that top few mils cleaned out for better penetration of stain. A penetration that once in place will stop or put a great damper on wood decay and allow longevity of your wood.

I believe this is one of the very best threads ever on thegrimescene. I can't believe the next to last post is just over 4 years old, I remember this like it was going on yesterday! It's kind of sad because the quality of posting just doesn't seem to be around anymore. This board is what got me to get out of painting and go into pressure washing and deck restoration.

you can wait as little as 5-10 minutes, you can use the most cheap big polyester brush you find at a local hardware store. I haven't used any tint formulas yet, just the clear

Bump. whatever happened to this product? Does anyone use it?

First happy new year to everyone and a prosperous one at that. About my ideal stain, I have used quite a few different stains over the years and second guessed and triple guessed them while logging in my experience. I probably started like everyone else, laying down the stain without much thought for the actual chemistry behind it. Now after doing it for 7 years under this latest venture, and many years prior to that during the 90s, I have finally come to the conclusion as to what I want and what works and why. This will surely be different for everyone, everyone has different experience and different climates and preperation. But what I have found out is that I need a diamond hard surface near the top of the wood. I am not talking a 'film former' but the first few mils has to be occupied by a hard drying resin, no flexibility, no linseed modified alkyds or just linseed oils. I do like the conditioning of mineral oils that dive into the wood - but in the end I need a stain that has a hard surface in a minimal amount of time. Something that the old tung oil modified alkyds of the past did well - or just plain synthetic alkyds. I know many have talked about the inability to maintain a harder resin finish like ATO of the past - but I have found that stains that replace the majority of mineral spirits with mineral oil - that the top coat of alkyd is not as overbearing and not as film forming and therefore easier to maintain. I need that hard surface to lock in the mineral oils from flowing out, keep the pigments in place protecting the wood, and keep the mildewcides locked in better. As well a harder surface makes it much harder for dirt and contaminants to attach to, such that it all washes away easily come the next rain storm, thus prolonging the life of the stain. Those are my findings - and that's what I am after now when searching for a stain.

Oh, yeah? Got a recommendation? My plan is for the 1500 series this year.

Just checking out the 2010 poll, which you can see right here - http://www.thegrimescene.com/forums/wood-cleaning-restoration-decks-fences-etc/19638-what-sealer-s-you-using-2010-a.html and the thing I find most interesting is to see how much ground TWP has made since then to now. Nobody publicly mentions the stuff all that much, no jumping on the bandwagon threads about the product either. And yet, it's gained a lot of ground - that says a lot about what Contractors behind the scenes are thinking about the various different products despite the public 'pumpings' that go on these boards.

The very fact you have to use turps/thinner as a cleanup as well as having oily rags already makes oils more difficult in my book.

I've used HD-80 and F-18 at much lower concentrations and got the same cleaning capability as percarbs. I think I've cleaned bare wood with 1 oz of HD-80 per gallon what would take 8 ozs of percarbs to do.

Let me interject here, I've been put nearly out of business using a popularly used oil based product many 'pros' here endorse. My experience with Seal-Once is using mainly the clear sealers and not so much the tinted - but so far results have been spectacular. The product is excellent and not snake oil. It's watery, easy to use, normal spread rate and you'll never any issues like you will have with many oil sealers. If you want to follow a blind ideaology that oil is best - that's your deal. I'd be lying if I said oils didn't make up 90%+ of what I use - but I am looking to use these waterbornes more and more. Seal-Once along with a couple of others are in the testing mode. I have one brand out in the "field" on customers decks. To the hobbyist perpahs these waterborne variants aren't as nice as their oil counterparts - but I am trying to run a profitable business, using these products take 30% less time including all the nasty cleanup. They are sufficiently good looking for most folks and I've seen reviews where folks are even happier - I've had failures with an oil in as little as 4 months! I listened to many 'pros' on this board over the years and have learned my lesson. Just always look out for #1, because you can't use these 'pros' as an excuse to your unhappy customers. Always have a plan 'B' in the works, and a plan 'C'. And be open minded to these newer generation products. I can tell you first hand, oils are no fun to use!!!!!

I use to think there was a place for percarbs. Now it seems for every cleaning situation there is a different chem that I can use less of, apply it more rapidly via downstreaming. I can't seem to think of one useful application for percarbs - if I have the stuff, I know how to clean with it - but other than that. Perhaps for eco minded homeowners? Can you wash a house with percarbs, without having to backbrush the entire home? When is percarbs ever the more convenient chem to use? Even if I was going to apply chems direct through a roof pump or something - you can still use other chems at an even lower chem to water ratio for that as well.

I am not worried about the cost of gas killing my business in New England - I am much more worried about the future drought that looks like we're expected to have. Temps are still cool enough to make it seem surreal - but there just isn't any water coming down- and once things heat up, then it will be apparent, and I am scared as heck! So much I am gambling on not renewing all the newspaper 1 year contracts. I just can't shell out hundreds of dollars on marketing if folks stop calling because they believe they can't hire me.

The new wood is always much lighter in appearance after staining. I imagine you would have to 'burn' the older wood with a really high concentration of OX to get it to match better. It's not worth the effort to try in my opinion.

Just over 7 months on my own test deck with TWP and I am a believer. Deck still looks absolutely perfect, yet it got the exact same prep I do on all my decks - including all the decks that resulted in premature failures. Gotta love Manufacturing support when they accuse your preparation as the cause to their products failure. TWP has my money from here on out.

Celeste - pushing TWP200 around is like pushing tinted transmission fluid. Definitely not a stain I would use for normal deck work - perhaps if it's thinned it will be ok. I am interested in the 1500 series and will try that next. I used the 500 series on a customer's deck this past summer - heard about the drying issues, so I thinned it and added jap drier. I didn't like the fact that any remnant on the can never seemed to dry even 3 months after the fact {thank god I thinned it!} It had the exact same coverage that I am use to - but what I did like, was that it was a 1 pass application - I haven't seen that in a long long long time.

Beth there are drying oils and there are drying oils - I don't have experience with the entire TWP line yet. But the difference I am seeing is the 'natural' oil resins or even the 'natural' oil alkyd modified resins remaining soft - versus the synthetic alkyds drying rock hard. I actually don't want a high content of surface oils - if the resins are really rock hard, I don't think it needs to be that much.

I think you are right based on experience with the tung oil based stains of the past like ATO. But here is where I think you are wrong - a product like that in the past was something like 60% thinner and 40% resins. Where as TWP200 from my cup experiment looks like 90% mineral oil and 10% resins. I tried like heck to get patches on my deck to form a 'film' - let me tell you it was dang hard!!! I put two drenching coats separated by 24 hours - and only small areas over that was I even able to get it to form a surface film. So what this tells me - is now I have my diamond hard coat - but since it's not just resin and thinner of the past - there is much less resin than in the past - and so I think the deck will just degrade very evenly and ready for maintenance in 2 years. But we'll have to wait and see - so far this is the best product that's ever gone on my own deck. As to Beth - she is absolutely right about the ratios - the ratio is heavy on mineral oil and light on curing oil - which means it will form a very thin and even layer that will degrade evenly for an easier maintenance. Stains like ATO if you weren't careful put loads of tung oil resins - too much - but that was the technology at the time - less resins and more thinner would have just made a splotchy appearance. Where I think Beth is wrong, firstly a mineral oil and curing resin product which we've seen since woodrich has had one faulty premise. The curing oil was linseed and/or linseed modified alkyds - I think this is the wrong approach for decks, I think not only does mineral oil get in the way of polymerisation - linseeds are just way too soft unless used in conjunction with lots of pigments like in a semi or solid/opaque stain - it's better suited for vertical siding where it won't have foot traffic. Another thing I think Beth is wrong with is how these oils have cured and their longevity due to VOC changes. I have a local manufacture in my town called California Paints - and they manufacture a whole line of stains that are excellent. Although more old school, no use of mineral oil. They had the same issues with drying and longevity with the 2005 VOC laws - but they changed the ingredients and there are no more issues, other than the fact it's harder to spread. What I think is the issue, is that even though for a paint company California is relatively small, compared to these stain manufactuers they are huge and have deep deep pockets. This chemist explained to me that in order for these new stains to work well with these voc laws they had to change the 'driers' in the stain - the problem is that these new driers are wicked expensive, but this company can afford to sacrifice profit margin in order to maintain their reputation. I am having my doubts that these smaller stain companies are willing or even able to swallow the costs of using these more expensive ingredients. I have personally witnessed this newly formulated stain go on hardwood, went on thick, but over a couple of days was able to fully absorb into a hardwood deck on it's own and cured out hard without any surface film - I couldn't believe it when I saw it!!! Other than a 2-3 day wait time on hardwoods, it had the look and feel of the old stains and it was low VOC at the same time! And I've seen another customers deck {which I don't maintain} being maintained with this same product without stripping - and still not much surface buildup. So I think oil stains can work in this VOC age - just that we deal with smaller companies that in my opinion are too small to front all the additional costs to make these stains work well. TWP has proven to me that it has the legs to stand on and put the right ingredients in.

Do you use that stain, Jim? I was going to try the 1500 - and see if that was a customer friendly stain out of the can. All I need is a thinned 200 series and I think I have it.