The Follies of Fir

[plainpainter 217]

This is a deck I am attempting to restore, it is straight grained fir that was installed just two years ago and immediately finished off with Sikkens SRD. Now my initial reaction was that Sikkens is now junk - but I have been compiling a bunch of memories of my work in the past with several fir decks dating back to '06 all the way to a restoration I just completed and my opinion now is that Fir is just junk wood - at least for staining purposes in an outdoor environment. It was the only wood folks use to use for their covered front porches - before pressure treated existed, but was only ever painted typically with some form of oil floor paint.

I will be abandoning oil entirely for this last Fir project and I am going with DEFY Extreme epoxy/nano-particles based stain. Will follow up with pictures as I continue this project.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Can't wait to see the pics!

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

I just restored another fir deck with A.C. - and it ain't pretty, not A.C.'s fault. I will post those pics in this thread as well to show the progression - and warn other restorers not to get involved with Fir decks. It's a beautiful deck - but there is something really screwed up with the wood.

[James 625]

Danny , on duggy fir decks I go very simple because they are difficult to care for with regards to excepting a finish. I go with RS LB cut with Klear RS cut with spirits. This is a breeze to care for- wash / reapply same day. Duggy fir rots when covered with a filmer. I have one customer who put linseed on every year for 20 years. Deck looked pretty kool . Black and board replacement every so often.

[plainpainter 217]

Jim - I am going to post photos of a deck fir deck I just finished - guy had two coats of the worst kind of film former you've ever seen over a 7 year period. There was only so much I could do - I heavily modified A.C. with extra Mildewcides and Jap drier - I also reduced it 25% with spirits, and even then it had a hard time sucking up the stain.

[plainpainter 217]

Here are the before pics of the Fir deck I just completed - 2 layers of some nasty film former, I think SPF followed by ATO post '05 version. It was a real nasty strip.

[James 625]

Dan that is one nasty deck. I just quoted a 10 year old Pt deck with cabots clear coat on it the first year. then in the 6th year they put sikkins on it. The didn't like the look and had the painter put 2 more coats on. Now it looks like a scab when its ready to come off. I did a test spot and got to the cabots what a nightmare !!!!

[plainpainter 217]

Jim - you will laugh when I tell you how I stripped this deck. I had HD-80 mixed full strenght in a pump-up. But I had my winterized trailer with 15 gallons of anti-freeze sitting in the float tank - I took it out of winterization by emptying it on this deck, then following with HD-80, and then emptied the remainder on top of that!!!! LOL - and it still didn't get everything off! The first coat was some Cabot's clear - it was hard as glass, those photos of the stripped deck are to follow.

Oh yeah - when I was stripping off this so-called 'stain' it had built up so much, I had to get a landscaping broom to push off the accumulated pile of this stain off the deck! Seems to be more and more of this kind of non-sense as time goes on.

Edited June 7, 2011 by plainpainter

[plainpainter 217]

Here are some photos after being stripped and neutralized - notice some spots of that Cabot's clear still left on the deck after I ignited a nuclear bomb on it, that remainder was hard as glass!