plainpainter

These boards have helped me a great deal in the past, so I just wanted to let you guys in on a more commercially available stain that is an absolute gem! Now I have a feeling in the next few months that there going to be some great products available to us - and I don't think this product I am introducing is the best of the them, but I think it's a good product that will give you good value, has many of the properties as contractors that we're looking for. It's basically the quality of the 'old' ATO product but even better - resists color fading, goes on great, is thin and really penetrates yet loaded with pigmentation so you get great color. It really is my all around favorite stain to use, and mostly because it is so widely available at quality paint stores. It is a product made by california paints - you can go on their website - CALIFORNIA PAINTS - and search for a store near you, or go to STORM STAIN for just a dedicated site. I have included picturs of the can. Somehow, even though I live in a 'reduced' emission state of Massachusetts - they somehow have figured how to be VOC compliant, I think they went to the EPA and ran their particular mineral spirits through their tests and were given an exemption - they are known thoughout the northeast as being the absolute cleanest manufacturer - the quality of the air they exhaust into the surrounding atmosphere from production is cleaner than the surrounding air itself! So they ar totally an up and coming 'green' company - they are small, 50-75 million a year and growing tremendously fast, their paints are absolte perfection in quality. So look a the their VOC, you will be amazed - this stuff really sinks into the wood. And I did a 'scratch' test on top of the can where their is some product dribble - you can't scratch this stuff off! This can is from last season - about July, so that dribble has been curing for an honest 7 months.

That can are design was new for the the '07 season. It is not old stock - they have exemptions on VOC's. If you read my post, you would have known that. The limit here is 350ml/liter. But several companies have gotten exemptions - they will continue to have those limits even in our 'reduced emissions' corridor. Like I said - this is a fantastic product!

If you are talking about rail-road ties type of smell - to me I think of creosote, and no does not smell anything like that. Upon revisiting the deck a day or two later to collect my check - I didn't smell anything at all.

I will go back in a month or so and take pics of a deck I restored Beth. I will go post some 'befores' in a moment. I'd rather show some pics of a deck that has seen a good 9 months and a winter to show how really outstanding this product truly is.

Here are the scratch test photos, you will notice from the ingredient list that this stain contains cobolt napthenate - so this product is really meant to preserve your wood almost has the ability to make pressure treated from kiln dried on the spot! But it's drawback is that is nasty smelling - requires the use of a respirator - but man you should have seen these carpenter ants trying to get away one time - this product really kills pests. It has a great color too.

Doug - American companies aren't taxed sqiddle-dee-doo. If they were taxed any less, and there would be nothing left in the coffers to do anything in this country anymore. This country has made it very easy for companies to turn a profit - by allowing a safe-haven in countries in China. If thier currency was allowed to float on the open exchanges and they were forced to implement environmental laws - which the Kyoto protocal allows them to get away with - things would even out.

The reason why American Companies can't compete - is because these 3rd world nations pay their workers doggy doo. When globalizations starts to encompass the same workers' rights world-wide - then we'll see a levelling effect. But until then capitalists will continue to exploit these vast inequalities. Ken - I don't see why you are so bothered, I see this as the natural outcome of unfettered capitalism at its finest. This is what happens when you remove government intrusion like the conservatives and lobbyists have been pressing for the last 3 decades. This is the outcome when you let these 'whores' and 'gluttons' practice their so called voodoo economics of the 'marketplace' will sort out everything or their laws of 'supply & demand'. I am a small business owner that also tries to invest in the stock market - but that's because I feel I have to, in order to survive in this day an age. Give me a 40hr job with bene's under FDR's New deal liberal socialist government progams - and I will take it! Everybody had jobs and the best economy as a result of FDR and his programs. Tax the 'rich' at 85% - that was when America was at its finest hour. Lowering the tax rates to 35% tops and the exportation of jobs to third world countries and the total removal of any government oversight into how companies conduct business. Well - I guess it's just time to bend over.

It's worse than you think Ken, I have seen apple juice at my grocery store that came from China - and I live in New England - the capital of apple orchards!

thanks!

I would like some too!

hey don't forget to video yourself and post it on youtube - so we can all laugh our a$$'s off.

if they didn't want bleach spots on their deck - then why did they build it around a pool? Seems these ultra rich people can get real unreasonable.

I am including a link to a TDS document for Cetol SRD for New England. And in it shows two ways to prep - either sand a deck down, or use of TriSodium Phosphate and bleach & pressure washing. But either way - they say once moisture is below 21% or 48 hours after cleaning - that you should wipe down the wood with acetone just prior to putting down your stain. Here is the link http://www.nam.sikkens.com/pdf/cetol-srd-re.pdf has anyone ever done this level of prep for hardwoods?

Must have been real stinky! Do you think it brought back longevity to the product, Beth?

Rod - just curious, could you write a list of stains you have used in the past with, and adjacent to the list write down what the best performance was - and now the present performance. Like was there any stain that lasted 2 yrs on ipe in the past? I am curious.

Rod - what I was trying to say in a nutshell, is that in my location MASS - we still have access to the 550 voc limit ATO. And the product made in '06 can't hold a candle to some product that I have that was manufactured in '03. That is why I am saying I think it's not really a VOC issue - I think your observation of ATO quality declining post '05 is coincidental. The solvent in ATO and many other stains is Mineral Spirits - and me thinks the less mineral spirits only affects brushability and not so much longevity. Perhaps the less the spirits would translate to less penetration on softer wood species - but for harder wood species - I don't think that's really an issue. The Russell rant was basically pointing out that a 'cured' ESI resin is very flexible - and in my opinion not good if left to form a film - which is firmly suggested by Russell not to do. I believe the reduction in quality of ATO has more to do with Cabots abandoning higher cost/quality full bodied tung and linseed oil resins, that are already polymerised in the can. That stuff was rock hard several days after application - like varnish. I think they simply switched to lower cost resins that aren't fully bodied/polymerised - which is more flexible but not a good trait for a hard surface stable wood such as ipe.

That's 4 month old ATO??? Wow that product has gone downhill!

I think it's less about the spirits than it is about the resins rod. By yours and many others admissions - nothing is diving deep into ipe anyways. So what does the mineral spirits have to do with how will ATO lasts? Have you ever noticed how ESI's resins spill over on the side of their pails? Two years go by - and it is still gushy and flexible. Hardly something you would want on the top of a treaded surface as a film former - thus why Russell tells us to not leave any excess on the wood. ATO dried rock solid hard - not only did it bond to the wood - it was hard enamel - and I think they changed the ingredients and resins that no longer mirror this trait. Having flexible house paint on cedar clapboard is one thing - soft deck resins on ipe is another.

Jim I am very curious as you like readyseal coatings on ipe - I assume. How do you explain away that ipe is so dense that it cannot absorb parafinnic type stains? So far I like how it works on ptp - but ptp is like a sponge - where as it seems a curing type stain is the only thing that will sit on top of hard wood decks.

Rick Petry did a whole sequence of restoring ipe and applying readyseal. In his pictures, I think it shows how the readyseal has worn off tremendously after 6-8 months. But then again - all he has to do is do a one step percarb clean and apply another coat in the spring - so how is that different than a curing type stain - where you need extra effort in stripping the ipe each year? Of course I have never worked on hard woods - other than marine spar varnish on oak doors. I do mainly ptp decks and have used both curing type and seal oil type stains - and currently like the seal oil - as it still looks great - and I will wash in the spring and give it another dousing. But I still use curing type stains for customers.

Ken, Oxi-Clean is 50-70% sodium percarbonate - and the remainder is sodium carbonate - not as good as TSP or Sodium Metasilicate - but a fair cleaner nonetheless. I've added TSP to with good results, when I needed something in a jamb. Heck I made a deck stripper with the stuff! That ain't bad considering there was no caustic involved!

Tim Carter of the 'AskTheBuilder' fame absolutely loves sodium percarbonate products like you mention for cleaning roofs. But don't forget your deck scrubber and perhaps 3-4 applications!

Jim, just so we're on the same page - your critiscms of certain products. Do they stem from your use of them on hardwoods or all woods? I am very unfamiliar with hardwood decks - most of my work is ptp.

Two different paint companies can go to the same supplier {who will also package the ingredients for the paint companies} and spec out two different products with different resins and so on.

Well, we still have the power of voting. But then again according to the bartender wearing a red wig in those Wendy's commercials - Choice don't mean a thing when there is nothing good to choose.