plainpainter

Here is the link to the Amityville Horror house on Zillow's (undisclosed Address), Amityville, NY 11701 MLS# 2294176 - Zillow It's actually a very nice spread! Anyone have a million they could spare?

Jon, if everyone thought like you - we'd all be getting good pricing.

Is Larry Lowballer going to be put up on this wall? Sorry Larry, couldn't resist. Chris - I am of the opinion that these toothless whores have no shame, what good will this do?

Does anyone know what are those black stains that leaves {tree leaf} leave behind when left on a deck for a few days to a couple of weeks? I thought they were tannins, and now I think it some sort of mildew - but not the kind of mildew that's dies easily with mild bleach solutions. Anyone have a clue? The procedure to remove them seems to mirror some of those really hard composite decks sometimes. I just killed a 9 month old finish removing these stains.

Enjoy.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uemKF7BRX9E YouTube - Timber Oil Crap

Yeah, that's the 100% curing stain, just a relable of woodtux. I never tried the woodrich 70/30 formula - should be somewhat similar in theory to A/C's stain. Funny how you guys sort of like it for hardwoods - where as I would only consider it's use for future pressure treated products.

Rick - do you use the 100% curing oil formula or the 70/30 curing oil/parafinnic formula? When I used woodtux on Mahogany - it was really easy to overlap in certain places and get shinies - where as A/C it's impossible to get the 'shinies'. As well on Cedar posting - it was so easy to get lapping even when brushing. And it didn't last at all on Alaskan Cedar decking.

Rick, why did you reapply woodtux and not go with readyseal when you stripped the old finish?

Yes - it has screen windows - but it's all walled in and roofed in. It keeps enough weather out that the homeowner had really nice sofas in there, a nice rug and a large screen tv. The walls were tongue and groove fir really nicely done with some clear coating - the same with the ceiling. And there were patio doors along the total length where it abuts the house wall - and I've almost screwed myself in the past with those coated aluminum patio door frames with either stripper or acid. Just a total Cluster Phuck if you wanted to do a full 100% stripping - to date I've never figured a system that keeps stripper off of walls - I can't seem to tape any sort of plastic that will withstand the washing process.

I went back yesterday with a terry cloth and mineral spirits, I had with me VM&M Naptha, Acetone, turpentine, Xylene, lacquer thinner just in case, but the mineral spirits worked well enough. The deck was 95% of the way there - just a quick rub down of the boards and they were perfect. I have to say this about A.C. - it doesn't get gummy after all this time - I was still able to wipe it. Now the folks can move in all their furniture for 4th of July weekend for their party. I know what you are saying Jim, but I had my nephew with me that day and trying to train him. Was trying to teach him to spread it really thin, the thing is the A.C. still has tremendous penetration power, even when an old finish is still intact and 'etched' by buffing - the boards on the outside perimeter soaked in all the stain without any additional help, just the sun was enough. And a quick rubdown - although would have relieved me of any headaches, wouldn't have gotten nearly as much stain into the wood than what I did.

Everybody here is so judgemental. That pos deck looks like it had white paint on it, as you can see strips of white between the boards - it's been to hell and back. And to boot it is freaking cedar - that stuff does not absorb anything, you'll get the shinies with A.C. and if you don't 'overapply' you will end up putting so little it will have no life. This is just a freak case of a deck - I wouldn't be so judging of the contractor unless I saw his/her other work.

Isnt' this true of all woods and not just ipe?

Rick makes two separate trips to apply stain to a customers deck?!$@#????? That right there is enough of a decision maker to never ever use that stain. Holy Mother of God. Aren't we in the deck 'staining' business and not the deck-saturate-with-oil-until-every-cell-is-oilified business?

Just want to chime in with Rick differentiating between drying oils and resins. Drying oils are the Resins! Most companies use an alkyd modified drying oil such as Linseed Alkyds - and some companies use a combination of alkyds along with natural drying oils unmodified in the same base. But Linseed oils, tung oils, linseed alkyds, tung alkyds, alkyds, sunflower oil, sunflower alkyds, Soybean oil, Soya Alkyd These are all 'resins' that are referred to in these products. When we talk about resin-pigment-carrier - we are talking about a 'siccative' like drying oil such as linseed, perhaps modified with an alkyd, along with the pigments, and then a petroleum distillate such as mineral spirits, gum spirits, etc. If ReadySeal has a 'resin' - then it has either a 'drying' oil, an alkyd modified drying oil, or just an alkyd - in which case it is no longer just a pure parafinnic oil product but one that resembles Armstrong Clark's stains.

That's alaskan cedar? Now you tell me! I did one of those two years ago with woodtux - and I sanded the whole floor down, the stain didn't penetrate at all. And when I came back the following spring to clean off leaf mold on his deck - I ended up free of charge touching up the whole floor, because the stain just powdered off in certain areas.

Kevin - HD-80 won't dissolve more than 10 ozs/gallon. And that's close to the strength I use to strip a healthy finish off a deck, i.e. 8 ozs/gallon. If you put a 10 oz mix through a downstreamer, you'll have basically 1 oz/gallon hitting the deck. That's just barely enough to clean up grey UV damaged wood. You have to mix a 'hot' HD-80 batch with butyl and extra surfactants before you could downstream it just to take off a real 'light' finish - like a $14/gallon cheapo olympic in the tin can stain that's 4 years old.

I got into downstreaming stripper for a while - but unless all the conditions are perfect, like a vinyl sided home and not paint - it just got to be so much of a pita. You'll need a helper and a 4x8 sheet of coroplast to help guard against splashing. And btw - you can never mix HD80 strong enough to downstream.

Why are you worried about stripping the finish with SH? If the job was done properly, you only like need 2 cups of household bleach per gallon of water and some dawn liquid soap. A typical downstream house wash is plenty good for cleaning up decks for a maintenance wash.

Jeff - if the paint washed away, it was because of extremely poor prep, as in applying paint directly over dusty oxidized aluminum trim. Or it could just be the original paint is extremely oxidized, and it comes off now by a simple solution of bleach and soap - and it could have gotten that way from the hot water. Hot water and hydroxide - he probably tried to clean some of the streaking that shows up on the aluminum trim - and this took 80% of the life right out of the coating. So now if you come and look at it, it will just come off. Whatever it is, it is a compromised coating now - and water alone will make it come off. Just tell them the fact you use cold water, so if the paint comes off, that's proof the coating was already compromised before you even got there. You aren't responsible for prior idiocy, and they should have hired you in the first place.

Mike - I do gutter cleanings, but I don't do 'em cheap - but I don't rely on them exclusively either. You should try an add that says.....we fix $65 gutter cleanings!

He got sick of all the lowballers and cheapo customers and decided these online forums were just a waste of time.

Why do homeowners think they are the center of my universe? I mean they want to be scheduled for an exact date, for an exact time, 3 weeks out. And get all tiddly if don't fall perfectly within their schedule. This is setting a dangerous precedence - imagine updating dozens upon dozens of homeowners everytime your schedule gets updated? I had this guy put me off for a couple of weeks for so and so reason - and then wanted me to come by today because he has bark mulch being installed tomorrow and is worried about bark mulch getting bleached out. Why can't I just tell these people that I'll be around the week of so and so and I'll leave an invoice when I am done?

My little deck/porch out front that I did last autumn with AC semi cedar still looks brand new. A Mahogany deck I did with AC semisolid custom mix, 2 coats wet on wet that I did last summer, still looks brand new as of a few days ago.

Hey folks, My mailman just came by, and it turns out that his condo association doesn't clean windows. He is on the third floor, and he has the type of windows that he can't clean from the inside unlike the next building over where they have new windows. So I figured, get a ladder, ammonia based window cleaner, rag - and then go to work. Then I thought - perhaps there was a more efficient way of cleaning windows with the pressure washer and downstreaming with a different set of chemicals. Any thoughts? -Dan

The only way to fight this is to do marketing warfare. These 'hobos' of pressure washing are constantly being cycled through the revolving door.