Thoughts on Oxalic and Ipe

[plainpainter 217]

Russell among others sells a milder acid that contains citric acids - it's selling points being that it doesn't harshly bleach the wood like oxalic and it improves your spread rate - while I am inclined to agree, I had another thought swimming in my head of mine - the one that Ipe is a hard wood to get anything to stick too. Then in my head I did one of those 'one plus one is two' moments.

If oxalic 'opens' up the wood much more severely than a citric blend - wouldn't it make more sense to use that on a wood like Ipe - to clean out the 'pores' and get a better penetration of your stain, especially woodtux.

And I am not really interested in people talking about the 'integrity' of the wood - and how we are here to preserve it. I am talking about the top few mils. I mean come one - not one of us hesitates to sand down a few mils when confronted by a nasty restoration job. Can't we just all agree the top few mils is fair game when it comes to getting stain to adhere? I mean in an inch you got 1,000 mils to play with before you run out. Floor sanders wack out your hardwood floors after the 3rd sanding. What's the big deal about getting that top few mils cleaned out for better penetration of stain. A penetration that once in place will stop or put a great damper on wood decay and allow longevity of your wood.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

That sauce shows the wood nice...I'll take a pm recipe now thank you.. :)

Hey you know what don't look bad also on ipe is Superdeck cherry... They got ipe wood chip samples displayed some places. Anyone hate or love Superdeck?

[RPetry 564]

Busman's holiday. Mothers are gone from both sides, and we do not have kids so decided to finish our deck furniture. Teak purchased about a year ago and left to weather over last summer. Cleaned about 3 weeks ago with sodium percabonate and brightened with citric acid, no rinse.

Stained with one app using lambswood. Ready Seal stain, natural cedar color.

This deck gets direct sun, nearly all day in the summer. To keep up with the "test", will continue with commentary and pics in August. Of course, now we have to buy a new umbrella and stand. It never stops!

[MMI Enterprises 289]

very attractive Rick.. gotta luv teak!!...

btw, word of warning to those with the glass tables... always have protective ring in table hole, umbrella in it's stand, and top collapsed during wind. Mine shattered a while back into a thousand pieces that took a couple hours to cleanup even with dry vac.

[RPetry 564]

Kevin,

Teak is the best exterior wood I have ever worked with. Ipe' is second. Both are about the best you can get.

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - very stunning work. In your estimation - how long will your deck look this nice? Looking at your deck makes me bored working with PT. But then again - not having to educate customers as to why a stain won't last more than 6 months, when they think it should last 6 years - is a load off my back.

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

In your estimation - how long will your deck look this nice?

I honestly do not know. This is the first time I have used Ready Seal on both teak and ipe'. The furniture and deck get full sun all summer long. Plus we use our deck a lot. I'm hoping maybe 6 months?

The idea is this. First and foremost, no more stripping. The hard work on both woods is done. Once the wood is prepped correctly, ie: stripping, percabonate cleaning, brightening, sanding, etc. and the stain applied right the first time, its a done deal.

With RS, the beauty of the stain is in the ease maintenance. From now on, only a very light cleaning with a diluted bleach / very light soap mix is needed. No real need for a pressure washer. Though not so applicable to ipe' and teak, you do not have to wait for a stretch of dry weather for the wood to get to 12% or less in moisture content. As oil is still in the wood, all woods dry very fast.

Maintenance staining is just replenishing substrate oils, pigment, and resins lost through time and weathering. This is very easy to do and goes fast.

My thoughts are that over time with maintenance, more stain will get deeper into the wood. This is what happens to PT, cedar, redwood, mercanti's, etc. The coloring gets richer over time and the stain lasts longer with more oil in the wood. We'll see if the same is true of the very dense and hard ipe' and teak.

[plainpainter 217]

Hey Rick - just jumping the gun a little bit - but any feedback yet?

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

You are correct. Not much to report. Both the oxalic and citric side of the test ipe' look about the same. The Ready Seal has lightened up a shade but that is normal. Otherwise, nothing yet as far as results.

[James 625]

The only thing to report is 24 cases of Hiney drunk between shade shifts. And one eye doctor visit!!

[RPetry 564]

Jim,

You are going to give the impression that I drink a lot of beer. Just because I have 6 frosted mugs in the freezer and my own green glass recycling bin does not prove anything.

[plainpainter 217]

Ok - Rick, I believe it's that time of year. So how did the Readyseal hold up on your ipe deck. And is there a difference on the railings between the oxalic and citric brightening and longevity? Care to share any pics as to how things look now?

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

You must have marked this on a calendar, 6 months to the day!

The Ready Seal has certainly faded some, though not as much on the floor as the top rail. I can tell no visible difference between the oxalic and citric brightened ipe'.

I'll try and get some pictures up tomorrow, schedule is a bit in flux at the moment.

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

Just got back and took two pic late afternoon on 10/22. First is the handrail.

If you recall, the right side (top of gate) and the small ipe' fill piece were treated with oxalic acid. The left side was treated with citric acid. Both were stained with Ready Seal, same color and same prep/application.

There may be a slight difference as the citric side looks a very fine shade darker than the oxalic side. This is visible to the eye but is so slight as to be in the realm of chance. Could be just the angle of the sun or something else.

What really surprised me is how well the floor has held up.

As you can see, this is right in front of the exit gate. With two new puppies, we use this section of the floor a lot. It is amazing how often puppies pee!

For comparison, the vertical post and spindles are old PT, not ipe'.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

So not only is this a comparison, but the puppies baptized your test wood? Is that what you are showing us? :) You and Ken are full of fun Ipe shots today, aren't you?

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - will you give it another coat before the winter sets in - or do you let them go through the winter and wait til next spring? I used Russel's parafinnic oil stain on my pressure treated - let it age for 2-3 months and just put another coat on it yesterday so it will have more oomph for the winter snows.

[RPetry 564]

Beth asked...

... but the puppies baptized your test wood?

Hah! Funny you should mention that. Just got home a little while ago. Today, Judy had both pups on the back deck for a few hours. Our 7 month old Miniature Schnauzer male is pretty much housebroken.

Our nealy 4 month old English Springer Spaniel female still hasn't quite gotten the idea that peeing on the downstairs tile floor is not appreciated.

So, this afternoon, she starts whining on the deck. Never whines. Judy takes her down the steps onto the lawn and she pees! Geeze, never gives us a clue in the house.

She's smart as a whip and probably appreciates ipe'. Hah!, great dog for a woodie!

[RPetry 564]

Daniel asked,

will you give it another coat before the winter sets in

Nah, no need. There is still oil in the wood and beside that, it takes a blow torch to do any harm to ipe'. Could let this wood sit for years without any damage.

Only reason to finish it is for appearance.

[plainpainter 217]

So what conclusions can we come up with all this testing? Or is still inconclusive?

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Rick, Is it fair to say SOME oil left in the wood?. Sure is faded compared to the pages before. Surely that dark/wetter/richer look of course comes by way of the oil wetting just as much or more so then the pigments themselves.

In a curing type I suppose the goal of deeper looks lasting comes by way of sealing in the good stuff so it can't evap out as quik.

Let's dye ipe so it looks and stays like when it first done..haha

Do you think it would be curious to see what the exact shade a dry pigment is before it is introduced to it's oil carrier? As discussed in Fenner's recent thread am workin on dyeing in a non-oil based colorant to get a consistant lasting color on ipe and do away with relying on oil for the richness.

Examples- concrete polishing and saucy red head's :)

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

I went back and read your first post in this 10 page thread. Your first paragraph is:

Russell among others sells a milder acid that contains citric acids - it's selling points being that it doesn't harshly bleach the wood like oxalic and it improves your spread rate - while I am inclined to agree, I had another thought swimming in my head of mine - the one that Ipe is a hard wood to get anything to stick too. Then in my head I did one of those 'one plus one is two' moments.

I added in the bold lettering. I'm afraid the test was doomed to failure from the start. I did not use a "curing" type stain such as WTW, but Ready Seal, which is a penetrating type stain. RS does not "stick" to anything. If it does form any type of "film" on the surface, you have not prepped the wood correctly or severely overapplied.

As you can see from the picture of the handrail above, visually I cannot tell much difference between the oxalic and citric treated ipe' using a penetrating stain.

Kevin asked;

Rick, Is it fair to say SOME oil left in the wood?

I would assume so, something is holding the iron oxide pigment in the wood. Would guess its parafinnic oil, stain resins, or both working together.

In a perverse way kind of like your dying idea. Ipe' is so naturally dense, moisture intrusion is not a problem. So throw out the oils and color it!

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Hey perve boy... don't let anothers perverse act rub off on ya!:lgbonk:

[plainpainter 217]

Ok Mr. Petry - this experiment we started almost a year ago to the date is ready to conclude. As well - I think it's fair that we some photos of the deck boards as well - I want to see for myself what kind of performance we can all expect on a customers Ipe deck with a product like readyseal one full year after application. And as well - how are you going to treat it for another application? Strip? Simple bleach clean? Remember if you use a product like efc-38 and then your citric acid - that's basically the same thing as a full restoration.

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

I made a note that 4/13 is the actual 1 yr. anniversary. It may be a while before I get to restaining, customers come first.

The ipe' will get a simple bleach/soap/water cleaning, no acid, and either a single application or two (if the wood will take it) of Ready Seal.

I'll post pictures here.

[plainpainter 217]

Thanks Rick - this is some of the most constructive info I have seen on these boards.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Aside from the obvious closeups needed for the test I'd appreciate seeing some taken of the main deck like the one up top with the BBQ.

Seeing pics of both before and after a cleaning would be nice.. :)