plainpainter

QC management....dream a little dream.....yeah I hear you Ken. Most painting contractors I doubt hardly get sold to others. I have seen plumbing businesses that were bought and sold - but they always had a brick and mortar place to go along with it, even if it was rented space. Maybe that's the trick - owning some commericially zoned property with a garage building and a front office. But I doubt most people think of selling their business. I just think about busting hump to make some money. Oh yeah - I am getting my 7'x12' trailer next week - I have a direct drive AR pump on a honda 13 hp motor for 3800psi 4.0GPM's - and I will get some hose reels from Bob - and a 275 gallon tank - some hoses - and I think I will be good for a while. Maybe my business will be worth more with pressure washing services?

Ken - if someone say wanted to takeover my painting business, and wanted to invest in my reputation as an honest and quality painting contractor vs. trying to start his own business from scratch. Why wouldn't he just come and work for me and 'takeover' operations - and then when I was fully out of the picture - and he was comfortable with the customer base. Why wouldn't he put an offer on my business? I see your point. But if another prospective owner wants to mimic my business model by working on the jobs as I do as a small time operation. I can't see why they wouldn't want to buy my business from me. I think you are more referring to someone who has no 'hands-on' experience with the trades and just wants to buy a business and have it work turnkey. I think even in the world of high-tech, the more succesful companines have been those where the board are comprised of engineers willing to know first hand every part of the business. A hands-off type of company is a dream that probably won't come true for most of us. Even in my business - my helpers just don't scrape as well as I do. That extra bit of effort is what keeps my jobs lasting longer than the competition. If I just told my workers to scrape and then prime - it would be no better than my competition unless I got involved - the thing is how do I replace ME? Who is going to go that extra length for quality and also know when to stop when there is no further point? Perhaps that is why most major chains have never succesfully franchised painting operations.

Ken do you think at some point the quality of these products will come back - after the manufacturers have had some time to play around with formulations?

Ken - I have a degree in Mathematics and physics - although not needed for this calculation - but I did a quick calculation of 2x10's spaced 16" center to center - this doesn't take into account the outside 'skirts' area which may be the two outer joists - just what's 'underneath and out of view. And as well it doesn't take into account the bottom 'butts' of the joists since that area just replaces the area that the joist is covering up the bottom side of the decking boards. Anyways that being said this is area is 1.25 times the 'floor' area. So add 1 to that figure for 2.25 to get the total area. I like 2.5 - gives you extra fudge factor.

VOC laws are such horsecrap! The end goal is trying to remove ground level smog - which is created with the combination of VOC's and nitrous oxides. VOC's are emitted in far larger quantities, in the forms of isoprenes and terpenes, from trees then you could ever imagine from oil based coatings. That being said - if you remove all VOC products from the market - you are still going to have all these naturally emitted VOC's from trees to combine with the nitrous oxides from auto emissions. In other words - until you remove the nitrous oxides being emitted from the tailpipe - you aint' gonna break the chain of ground level smog being formed. Look at counties in CA - where they have totally removed these products - their ground level smog hasn't changed one iota! And it never will - because the EPA is a$$-backwards with trying to remove spirits - it ain't gonna solve the problem - terpenes from pine trees will always be there waiting to combine with auto emissions to form the same amount of pollution - the only limiting factor in this creation of ground level smog is the limit you impose on nitrous oxide emissions - anything else, and all you really have are a bunch of guys padding their resumes with how the enforced cleaner air standards - which amounts to nothing - and we're left with some pretty crappy products.

Sounds like Trex ain't the miracle product that it was promised to be. Got Wood?

Neighbors suck, agreed. I also can't stand when you give homeowners advice or your thoughts on another contractor - and then behind your back, they go to these contractors and use your good name to make accusations against them. Hold on - aren't what we say 'off the record'? That's happened a couple of times now - that I never say anything to homeowners about stuff like gee - they really goofed installing your gutters - now I just shut it. And so now these people get annoyed when they ask you questions about what the previous painter did or carpenter or roofer - and I don't tell them anything. Can you believe that? I will go to give a free estimate, and then these people want me to tell them how lousy a job other contractors did and recomendations on how to fix the problems - and probably won't even hire me for any work anyways. But I am resolute - I don't talk sh$t about any contractor anymore, even if I think they're hacks.

Hey - no hijacking this thread! This is a very informative thread that doesn't need any extraneous thoughts or comments. Let's keep it for Rick and his updates on the longevity of ReadySeal stain on Ipe, ok?

Wow - cool! I thought maybe the tone would even out after the 2nd coat. So I guess we are looking back sometime around Halloween, Rick? Anyways no matter what lasts longer or what not - for now the job looks absolutely wonderful. I have read about the whole RS vs. WTW debate - it's just those pictures look like beautiful teak oil, looks wonderful.

What is hang time - methylcellulose?

Hey Rick - you're wife won't let you take her to D.C for a 4 day vacation - or won't let you take the 'girlfriend' down? Which is it? LOL! My girlfriend is a middle school teacher - and has lots of the same ideas I do - and doesn't want to get stuck with some big house to always take care of. Maybe we will eventually get something small together. But for now I like to keep life uncomplicated - running my business is complications enough!

I am here - I was in D.C. from Sunday through Wednesday with the g/friend. I like the results thus far - very interesting. I too am looking forward to the second coat and how they look further down the road. My inititial speculation is that with more coats the tone will even out. But now I am more interested in longevity - and that will take some time for the results to come in.

More evidence that the citric side may not be absorbing as much - the fact that the oxalic stayed wetter longer than the citric side. Much like two boards sitting side by side - one treated the other not. The treated board will dry up much faster because it doesn't accept as much rainwater as the untreated board. The oxalic side may be accepting more moisture because it is now more porous - and as a result take longer to dry out - but also accept more stain - and as well appear lighter once stain dries because more pigment soaked in vs. pigment settling and stacking on the surface.

Just thought of something - there was this old Varnish Maker's trick someone once showed me - say you want to stain some furniture, but the stain always soaks in and as a result you can never get the piece of furniture as dark as you would like. Well mix the stain in with the Varnish - that way the pigment 'stacks' up within the varnish coat - making it darker. So my very initial probatory evaluation would be that the stain on the citric side is not penetrating as well - because it appears that pigment is 'stacking' up on the surface - therefore giving a darker appearance. But at this point just a very premature guess. And even if it were true - it still does not imply longevity. What is great about all this - is that time will tell with absolute certainty what worked better than the other.

Rick - next time you take a photo of the handrail - could you leave more of the oxalic out of the picture. The first picture you took - only the gate w/oxalic and the remainder w/citric between the gate and the shed were showing. Now the citric is far off in the distance and hard to tell a difference. A moot point now - but think of it when you take your next shot with 2 coats fully soaked in. Any thoughts as to which side may have soaked in more stain - or is it too hard to say?

I'll to ya a good reason to downstream instead of x-jet'ing. For one reason or another you never plunked down $125 + shipping to buy one - and instead you picked up a dual lance wand or just a wide open 00 tip for pennies - and got instantaneous results with little effort. Hey I was washing houses with a pump up sprayer and deck scrubbers. but now I am cruising - so why should I plunk $135 for something that would have me lugging around 5 gallons of chems like the good ol' days?

Hey Ken - get well soon, and I hope I am in the will if you next time you aren't so lucky - hee hee!

Try Sodium Percarbonate, i.e. oxi-clean with plenty of surfactant and good dwell - and let us know the results. I have cleaned homes with oxi-clean/TSP with a pump sprayer and a deck scrubber. So I know with time and experimentation - you should be able to come up with a good mix. It's just that putting together a recipe with bleach is fast and easy and cheap! And most people don't really have all the difficulties you are talking about, so why change? Go buy simple cherry and add it to the mix if you don't like the smell. And Jomax sucks - and probably contributing highly to the smell.

Thanks Rick - I guess the data doesn't stop coming in - I wonder why the different drying rates?

I think the oxalic is spot on, if you ripped open a board.

Wow - Rick, this is amazing data. I wish Beth and Rod would archive this thread or part of this thread. I think there is valuable information here. Almost seems like the oxalic had the reverse effect I thought it would - it seems that it drew out more tannins like a caustic would - any thoughts on this anyone? What I like about this - because it's Ipe, we should know in 6 months which treatment was a better success. I can't wait! Online forums are so cool - why would anyone want to belong to an organization when you have the grimescene!

ARen't these drop off rates of bleach you people are talking about due to sunlight? If that is the case go to your pool center and get some cyanuric acid to keep the strength of your bleach.

Seems like a hot tank is in order to increase the work year. I've had similar problems trying to get mildew off with bleach/TSP/Surfactant - when temps were in the low 40's.

I just went to look at a customers deck today that I stained last May - well restained last year with two wet coats after had done two years previous to that. Well the finish is ok - but the deck just looks brutal - and I figured it out! The deck is soooo hot - that it is making the sap ooze out the top and push the stain off. Is there anything that can be done to combat this? It is pressure treated - I am about to recommend they just rip it up and put something nice down. As a side note - they have white vinyl siding - and it oozes white crap all down the siding onto the deck - is this chalk? Can other prep and different products be more appropriate for sap oozing decks in hot sun?

The first time I touched this deck 3 years ago - there was a bunch of sap - took it off with VM&P Naptha - took it right off. Then again did the same thing last year - but didn't strip the deck - but sanded down in areas. It is there again. I think most boards have the capability of oozing sap - it's just this deck is so pulverizingly hot. On a sidenote - does anyone have recomendations for people with oozingly hot decks? I think the fact it has no shade, faces south, and the house is blindingly white vinyl all contribute to atrocious heat. Will a stain loaded with more trans-oxide pigments help to cool things down a bit?