Impressed with HD-80 as a wood cleaner!

[plainpainter 217]

Had to strip a backyard deck today, then I cleaned up the front steps. They were greyed out never treated - so I decided to go with the 1oz/gallon stripper formula I have seen for cleaning up untreated greyed wood. And let me tell you that worked fantastic! I still used the citralic to brighten.

Typically I would have just used a bleach/TSP solution - or given the efc-38 a try. Any reason one would use efc-38, if all you have to do with HD-80 is dilute it? Is it still dangerous to paint at those low levels?

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

Do not know anything about "painting" raw wood. Do know that we have never used any sodium hydroxide on bare wood. A bit of a sledgehammer opposed to a tissue. Sodium percarbs or a bleach mix on occasion when warranted.

Sodium hydroxides are for stripping off old stains, sodium percarbonates or hypochlorites are for cleaning raw wood or maintaining paraffinic oils.

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - I just used 1 oz of HD-80 in a gallon of water, I've heard others do the same. I will post results when I am done. I still neutralized.

[RPetry 564]

Rick - I just used 1 oz of HD-80 in a gallon of water, I've heard others do the same. I will post results when I am done. I still neutralized.

Daniel,

1 oz. a gallon is certainly a very weak mix. Wonder if the NaOH at that concentration really does much of anything at all, or is much different than cleaning with just plain water. Don't know.

[Scott Paul 164]

We have been using water downed NaOH to remove grayed decks for years. Works very well.

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - it works extremely well! My thoughts are now that efc-38 is like a 'safe' stripper, where I have to worry about adjacent areas/surfaces, like trying to strip mahogany railings with coated metal balusters. But at 1 oz./gallon - that's downstreamable! No F'ing around with efc-38 and delavans - and water tanks - you can mix 5-8ozs/gallon and then downstream greyed out decks - works awesome!

[Celeste 341]

Diluted stripper is a great cleaner and actually cost effective as well. Shelf life is waayyy better than SH for certain :)