plainpainter

I was at my favorite shoe store buying shoes the other day. It's a family owned independent business that's been around since the original shoe factory left - like 50 or so years ago. It's the only place I could ever find wide shoes - and everything is quality. And I was asking the guy is everything being made in China - and I was surprised at his response. He started telling me that so and so was opening a shoe factory up in Maine - and another one somewhere else - jobs are coming back to America!!!! Holy crap! These aren't high paying tech jobs, of course, but it represents a turn back to where Americans looking for work can get it.

That was an eye opener! I never thought about that, that would actually be funny - watching guys trying f you behind your back. And then they slowly realize how screwed they are.

I don't know, sounds like typical Republican behavior to me...

Sounds like you could have just 'boosted' the HD80 with glycol originally - like has been discussed in past threads.

Man is it hot.

So what's the recipe, Scott?

I still sand my decks, maybe at some point when I have enough cash flow - I'll cut back on the sanding. But for now I really need every deck to look as good as it possibly can. And pressure treated looks awful with WHG if not sanded.

Rod - I didn't leave out the prep part - I mentioned the inevitable outcome of getting stain all over the composite.

One big reason I sand, Ken. Is that WTW Warm Honey Gold comes out pumpkin orange after stripping and brightening. If I go back and sand with 60 grit - then it comes out a much deeper attractive warmer color.

How many square feet of wood do you estimate?

Ok, he cares, so what - he is still going to get stain all over that composite decking and will end up looking like crap. I'm Italian - I can't help but having a mean streak in me - but for the record, I think this person will be much happier if they just go and hire a professional service to do his deck. Otherwise - imo, he might as well just clean with bleach and slap on some behr. He is going to struggle using wtw - and the readyseal will get everywhere. If anything I'd do more research about cleaning composite and then learning how to seal it - so come time to stain the wood part, when you do splash stain all over the composite - at least you will be able to wipe it off.

Ken - you need your head examined - Rosco wouldn't even get out of bed for a lousy 2 grand for a deck like that! That's an easy 10-15k job.

Ken, looks good - how much energy do you put into sanding a deck like that? My last deck I sanded all the railings, posts, stringer boards, and floor boards - but left the outside fascia {deck only 2 feet off ground} and all the spindles alone.

Go hire a professional.

Well I splurged this year on some pre-made chems instead of making my own. So I had to clean this pine wood siding on a store front for a friend - with tons of layers of loose layers of latex paint, never any prep. I took off the worst offenders with a turbo tip, but didn't go close enough to kill the wood. Then I used a pump sprayer and mixed efc-38 and 8 volumetric ozs. per gallon and soaked the siding. I have to say I was really impressed - with only 500psi, it took off years of greyed damaged wood and mildew leaving only clean wood behind. This one lady, customer of my friend, came while I was working and wants me to estimate her natural cedar shaked home. She told me the story of how she is wildly allergic to a myriad of chems - and I gave her the whole spiel about landscape friendly cleaners, but she was persistant in her allergies. So I explained that this cleaner is the 'Evironmentally Friendly Cleaner' and she was like who cares what some manufacturer calls their products. Then I explained how it was mainly Hydrogen peroxide combined with soda ash and some phospate detergent builders. And her eyes lit up, she is harvard grad, and she instantly said she had no problems with hydrogen peroxide and knows about phosphate cleaners and has no probs with them either. And to boot she liked how I was using low pressure to clean the surface effectively. So we'll see.

I can't get the coastal redwoods to grow in MA, but the smaller Dawn redwoods grow like weeds around here now - Giant Sequoias also do well. There is a cemetary in Cambridge, MA - and they even Bald Cypress growing very well. I do have a small Coastal Douglas Fir growing in my yard now, which I am excited about - as I was hiking through Muir Woods and noticed along the path a 10 foot diameter Douglas Fir that was as tall if not taller than the surrounding redwood trees - so they get tall too.

Not to mention beautiful redwood forests to go hike through on a hot day.

As a painter - my intuition is that knots won't absorb much, it's like the ultimate dense summer grain. And using many sealers over the past has confirmed this. But for all it's good points Woodtux dives super deep into the knots leaving these really annoying 'dry' spots.

I talked to a chemist that works for a local resin research and development company - and one project he is working on is an acrylic resin for a deck stain that has the same wear 'profile' as an alkyd/oil based stain. So peeling acrylic stains could be a thing of the past in the next few years.

Rick - with ptp, that last thread I posted, I drench two boards at a time with an airless - I have a feel for how much stain to lay on, then I backbrush it in with a big china bristle attached to a pole. You can do the same with a hardwood deck - but instead of a china bristle - use the lambswool applicator to brush out excess. The softer species of wood are much more forgiving. And after a while you develop a feel once you start backbrushing as to whether or not you laid on enough stain - basically if it absorbs too fast you still need to add more. Hardwood will tend to develop the 'shinies' much more easily and that's why I go with a lambswool - and not to mention hardwoods are smooth enough to allow you as well to use a lambswool applicator.

When you go to rinse sc, there is plenty of foam. Why the fixation on foam anyways? Lots of soaps have been engineered to not have foam, i.e. imagine what a laundry machine would be like if your laundry detergent foamed? It would be everywhere!

The simple answer is that rags soaked with curing oils and bunched up into a corner of a garage or someplace have a tendency to auto-ignite - and siding doesn't. As to the physics and chemistry of the how's and the why's - tell her that isn't your field.

Then shake the excess into a bucket or something - jeepers!

Rick - you saw my pictures of a red mahogany deck with wtw brown sugar. Yes, rinse the acid after it has been on for 10-15 minutes. I used a 6' staining brush on the end of a pole and slopped on tons of woodtux, absolute puddling. then after doing like 4 boards. I took a lambswool applicator and ran back over those boards to soak up/redistribute the excess. I just hand brushed the railings with a china bristle until saturation. soak the lambswool with a bit of spirits every 10 minutes and shake it out a bit over the grass each time.

I have only done it the way Thad explains - and while I don't smell an overwhelming cherry smell - I don't really smell the chlorine either.