Fur

[RCBill 14]

Hey All,

I have a good deal too much fur on the deck I cleaned. I understand that too much pressure and/or too strong of a chemical will cause this. Oh, and inexperience. I used the 1000# tip. Could that be too strong?

The deck I clean had not been coated in many years. It was very gray, split, and cracked. I've replace a lot of wood.

It seems to me that removal of the dead fibers will leave fur regardless of chemical or technique. The best that I can do is minimize furring. Am I correct?

Using this experience, it seems that when I am quoting a gray deck adding time to sand should be automatic. Is this correct?

I am using RS Lt. Brown. After coating the remaining fur is easy to see. Would using the Med or Dark Browns or Red reduce the impact of the furring?

TIA,

Bill

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Got a photo?

What PSI did you use? What chems did you use? How close to the wood were you? What kind of wood was it? How old was the deck?

Beth

[JFife 14]

RC,

I am going to assume you are somewhat experienced, not a total novice since you are a painter. Regarding furring, some wood does, some doesn't, you may reduce/increase slightly based on chems/pressure/proximity etc., but it mainly comes down to the wood. I'd consider myself to be fairly experienced, and I still do jobs that come out looking like someone wrapped the deck in a lion's mane. I seldom buff though, since I don't find it to be a good investment on a pt deck. If it is bad, i may present it to the customer and let them choose. I do buff 90% of homes though, since it is such a large investment. If you are charging for it/selling an upscale service, and are going to buff, consider applying Borate to the deck after neutralizing--for some reason this makes buffing significantly easier, and you can sell them the Borate job as an additional fungicide/insecticide for an extra $50-$75, and it will actually reduce your buffing work. Again, don't know why this works, but I know other guys that do this as well and it helps, I'd do it even if the customer was unwilling to pay for it, to save me buffing work. I'll anticipate the question of where to get this--find a distributor for the pest companies and ask them if they sell Timbor, that is 98%DOT (borate), about $75 for a 6gal. pail, would probably do 15 decks.

[RCBill 14]

Beth,

My machine is 3,200, the tip was 2508, The tip could have been as close as 4". I used ESP-38. The deck could be 16 yo, and never been coated.

Thanks,

Bill

[RCBill 14]

Thanks Jon,

I'll look into the borate.

BTW, I ordered the Osbourne Brush you recommended. Bought the Makita today.

When I get into something I need to know everything. What's the best. When does something fail. How to fix problems. I have an technical background. I've designed electrical/electronic/software controls for industrial machine tools. I've serviced consumer electronics, major appliances, and some HVAC. I'm used to being ignorant for a while, but I get up to speed.

Thanks for your interest.

Bill

[Joe Chadwick 14]

Bill, Give Pierce from Ready Seal a call at this number 757-599-4424 he can help you.

Joe

[Crownroyal 14]

Pearce is a good man. He lives down the street from me and has helped with a few problems I ran into.

[CLASSICPW 14]

Speaking of fur, I took on a job for a deck customer, his 177 lin ft 6ft fence, 2 yrs old and gray. Tried efc-38, citric brightener and finally chlorine, nothing was removing the grey. Even with 1000 psi the wood was not furring it was pulping, from only 10 lin ft I was covered in wood fibers and the fence looked horrible. It reminded me of pressure washing an interior grade 2x4 when I realized that this wood was not pressure treated. I told the guy what I just typed and said I'll wash the fence down to remove the mold and dirt and coat it in a Cabot's solid. He was cool with it. Apparently he haggled the fence company down from around $4,000 to around $2,000 so they must have used the cheapest wood available.

[CLASSICPW 14]

I posted 2 pics on the finished product in the gallery under wood restoration/ fence stain. One day I learn how to add pics to my post.

[RCBill 14]

I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend.

Pierce called me. He was pretty helpful as to how RS responds to fur and what to do about fur after the RS has been applied.

Jon's post gave me a lot of information.

I now know how wood becomes fur, what to do about it, and how RS responds to it.

I hope that other contractors will post on this matter. I'd like to know if contractors are removing fur and if furring is anticipated in pricing.

The deck I am working on (see the pictures above) is in pretty rough shape. Should I be looking at a solid stain for this one?

TIA

Bill

[big mike 14]

Most of the decks I do are Cedar, and are coated with some cheap consumer grade junk (Behr, Thompson's, CWF, etc.) This usaually means stripping and some furring. I remove any and all fur on the deck floor with the Makita (easy). The spindles are a PITA, but for them I use a 5" Porter Cable random orbital sander. This works pretty good. Old unprotected decks or fences will definitely fur on you because of the large amount of dead wood fibers. I usually plan on around 5 hours of defurring & detail work on each job. If it's less, then its more $ in my pocket. If you have a helper, have them do the spindles. Oh yeah, I no longer defur fences because of the advice from some seasoned pro's on this board.

[tropical wave 22]

Bill,

if that deck is 16 years old and been neglected, its going to fur some.... the first thing is to let the customer know the real expectations..it probably wont look brand new, it's old exterior wood, not an interior hard wood floor......the areas that are in the sun are going to fur more than other areas, If you ever get the unfortunate task of doing a deck underside you'll see the underside won't fur at all and the topside will...(damn UV rays)... I havent tried the osborne brush yet, but use the makita with the defelting pads and a 5" random orbit sander with 60 grit paper.....

as far as the pics you posted, from what I can tell, the wood doesn't need a solid, but it does look like some of the wood is still a bit gray, but it could just be the way I'm seeing the pics.....dont try a transparent over remaining gray, yuk...........and the nails will need to be reset, you'll tear thru sand paper like crazy.....

[RCBill 14]

Mike and Michael,

Thanks for the response. Just the information I was looking for.

I'll start to buff this out tomorrow with the Osbourne brush. In addition to removing fur I want to see if this will take care of faults like the remaining gray.

I read that you guys put a good amount of time into surface preparation. In all my lurking and reading back posts, I didn't get this. I was concerned because this deck needs time, and I couldn't be competitive with a contractor that would do this job in just a few hours. Predicting extensive preparation and informing a client that their deck will need the investment is familiar territory for me.

Thanks again,

Bill

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Personally, if the deck was old and abused I would suggest a darker semi-transparent, but not a solid, if enough solid was removed to not have it show thru... do you have a shot of the floor?

If you have solid inthe cracks, and it won't come out, I would suggest going back with a semi-solid or a solid but not a semi-transparent.

Even if you sand the entire floor, it is possible to not get all the solid off, if it goes deep enough into the cracks. Normally on an old dry, abused deck I would suggest a darker semi-transparent, if a solid has never been on the wood. But when a solid has been there it is hard to go back....

Beth

[RCBill 14]

Thanks Beth, I see your point on the solid stain. I had to concede to Lt. Brown. Happy wife/Happy life thing.

I guess I'm lucky to own this deck. I purchased the house last fall. Lots of problems to work through. Good learning.

This thread has been a genuine benefit. Thanks to all.

Bill