Furry Fir

[plainpainter 217]

Ok - so I got this house washing/gutter scrubbing/composite deck washing.

But all the balusters were Fir - but with composite railings. It had a nasty film forming stain - not even a very big deck. Well After I stripped - neutralized and then came back - my god - that fir was soooooo furry. And I know I was reasonable with the stripper - because there were still some traces left that the stripper didn't totally dissolve - so I hand sanded all the balusters and palm sanded for 8 hours. Then came the even trickier part - I hadn't realized the extent of taping and tarping and cutting I would have to do to get the stain on the spindles and not the floor or the railings - so you can imagine with a restored muscle car in the driveway - all vinyl house - no way incarnation I could spray either. I ended up hand painting the stain on all the spindles for a whopping 10 hrs of labor - LOL. I totally F'd up on this job.

The question is - when you come across jobs like this - where one element is different like composite decking - and it totally changes the game plan and an additional 10+ hours of labor, should we pass up on the work? Charge steeply for it? Or just take it on the backside to acquire a yearly house washing customer? I won over the homeowners and will be getting maintenance work - but I ate 18hrs of labor - even at a lowly painters wage of $45/hr that's still $810. And oh god Fir is the absolute worst in furring - all the wood had this incredible Santa Claus beard everwhere. IT sucked!

[MMI Enterprises 289]

"should we pass up on the work? Charge steeply for it? Or just take it on the backside to acquire a yearly house washing customer?"

Maybe just pass on it as it sounds like you don't like this type work...haha j/k.

Maybe it would have been easier to just take them rails off and/or lay them spindle together and belt sand the four sides then stain and reinstall?

[plainpainter 217]

you're kidding right, Kevin?

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

I feel for 'ya. Years ago when just starting out had a 2nd story semi trans deck, stairs, fascia, posts, and hand rail with white latex spindles. Took forever.

Either charge a ton, walk away, or if easily done and makes $ sense, tear out the old spindles, stain new ones off site and install.

Have a long time maintenance customer with composite decking but full cedar balustrade, fasica, posts, stringers etc. Gets charged a fair premium as all staining is done by hand.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

umm no, am not kidding.... Right situation of square spindle in a rail system that comes apart, the spindles can be placed together and done all at once and reinstalled. Ya turn them four times ....don't know your situation so can't say..round ones could be turned on belt sander perhaps, never done it yet though. I just know there no way I would want to sand rail systems for 8 hours when the whole job was likely planned out for less in total :)

In new construction situations (all wood) guys will often cut all the spindles and rails all at once off a single template then build the rail system. They stain them layed down on covered deck and than stand them up to mount.

[plainpainter 217]

No way - no how, was I going to take that railing apart. I'd like to know Rick how much you charge per linear foot of railing - I think I'd have to charge even more, as the hand rail was composite - so I had to cut in each spindle at the top along with the 2x4 stringer along the bottom of the composite hand-rail - man it blew.

[PressurePros 248]

uggh, cutting in spindle by spindle? That must have been horribly tedious.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

pics please.. I wanna see hand cut spindles in combo with composite, maybe could title it 'how ugly really can composite be?'.. :)

[plainpainter 217]

Ken - you have no idea how tedious - let's just say a rough 10x15 deck, took me 10 hours of labor, two days of 5 hours - that's all I could stand to do per day - it totally blew, I just don't know how I will handle future projects like this. But I thought it was so cool that the guy had fir instead of pressure treated.

Kevin - I will go back and take pictures - it came out absolutely beautiful.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Can't wait to see pics!

Beth

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

Never replaced spindles, but if they are easily detached, might be more efficient and less $ than stripping and hand staining.

Kevin,

Here are pics of the 2 jobs I referred to in an earlier post on this thread.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Rick,

Beautiful as usual!

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - that's exactly what I was confronted with!

[Tmrrptr 164]

I would have busted out all those balusters if they had been in bad shape, group cut. them after pre-painting stock, and t/u after installing.

r

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Fantastic work Rick!

I like the first one..looks like those would unscrew from outside right?

Second isn't bad looking persay but ya can have it.. haha. I don't like fake :)

The top rail unscrews right on off? That what I would do anyways if so. Would drop cloth the floor and spray what's left. Kickboard trim between steps I'd have china bristled it with aluminum shields. The defurring Daniel went through would be the problem far as time goes although the second deck seems to be of type that comes apart easy enough it still take a good couple/few hour to unscrew, do them , and reinstall if they were to be defurred and/or two toned that is..