Second Deck Strip

I stripped my second deck today:

It didn’t come out quite as well as I would have hoped. I used a 2lb jar of F18 with 2 gallons of water. I used a pump sprayer. I let it dwell for about 45 minutes. Kept it wet. I tried using a stiff brush, but that just gummed up quickly and wasn’t really more effective than the power washer. Some parts of this deck I hit 4 separate times, but it just wasn’t getting clean. I’m going to wind up doing a lot of sanding. Am I doing something wrong with the stripper?

Afew questions come to mind that you may want to answer in order for you to get some help with your dilema.

  1. What type of wood are you stripping
  2. What type of finish was/is on the wood
  3. What was/is the condition of that finish
    2lb to 2 gallons seems pretty strong so you may need to boost that mix further with some 633 ADD from ACR Products in addition to adding some surfactant to the mx so that it can actually sit on the surface longer
1 Like

Sounds like you are dealing with a water-based stain. 8 oz./gal. of sodium hydroxide with a dwell of 45 minutes is overkill for oils, unless it is a solid color oil based stain.

A few suggestions. Bump your mix to 12 oz./gal. Add 6 oz./gal. of ACR 633 and a bit of surfactant if available. After 15 min. dwell keeping wet, use a pool brush (stainless steel) to break the bond, and add some more stripper to any remaining areas with intact stain. PW off. Apply oxalic acid at 6 - 8 oz./gallon to neutralize/brighten. Hose rinse off.

This will probably fur the wood. A light random orbital sanding with 60 grit will be needed.

1 Like

Thanks. The wood is cedar. The stain is a semi-solid from Home Depot. On the horizonals, the stain was about 50 percent gone.

I’m a little confused. There are 16 ounces in a pound, right? So 2 pounds to two gallons should be 16 oz./gal, right? I thought that was a strong mix. Are you measuring weight or volume?

What are the chances that the 633 ADD will work? I’d have to buy that and wait for it to come. Probably not worth the delay unless it is pretty much guaranteed to work a miracle. I was thinking to go straight to the orbital with a 40 grit. I can keep the 633 ADD in mind for next time.

The cedar is soft and is already furring like crazy.

Instock,

My bad, misread your initial post. Thought you mixed the sodium hydroxide stripper at 8 oz./gal. At 16 oz./gal. and 45 minutes of dwell time, you are trying to remove a difficult water based stain product. Not for the feint of heart or new wood restoration contractors.

You can go ahead and try sanding with 40 - 60 grit. But be forewarned. Western Red Cedar gets really difficult to stain with a semi-trans oil or possibly a semi-trans waterbased (never have or will use these) after a hard sanding. Not positive of the reason, but have been told it raises the natural resins in the cedar to the surface of the wood due to the heat generated by a hard sanding.

The result is a “blotchy” looking finish. Better to let the wood alone over the winter, and a light clean and staining next year.

I dunno. My first deck was pretty much the same result. I had to do a lot of sanding. I also did some experimenting on my own deck. That wasn’t really any easier. I tried the Behr stripper. I tried the Sherwin Williams stuff. I tried mixing it myself. Nothing ever seems to work the way it is supposed to. Is it a New Jersey thing? Are all the decks done in water-based?

Thanks for the tip on the cedar. I will definitely explain that to her and see how we want to proceed.

I dunno. My first deck was pretty much the same result. I had to do a lot of sanding. I also did some experimenting on my own deck. That wasn’t really any easier. I tried the Behr stripper. I tried the Sherwin Williams stuff. I tried mixing it myself. Nothing ever seems to work the way it is supposed to. Is it a New Jersey thing? Are all the decks done in water-based?

Thanks for the tip on the cedar. I will definitely explain that to her and see how we want to proceed.

As far as the 633 goes, I can’t say that adding it will cause you to remove 100% of the old finish, but I know that it will definitely help in getting more of it off. Like Rick said, its not the tye of project for the faint of heart

Sanding was not as bad as I had feared. The 40 grit sandpaper makes a big difference compared to the 60. I was just wishing my orbital had more amps. That probably would have made it go faster.

For the tight areas, I used an oscillating multi-tool. The lowest sand paper grit I could find was 60. That sort of worked, but it was slow and the corners wore out too fast. I wound up using a carbide rasp attachment. That was a little bit TOO aggressive, but I just had to be careful.

The top of the railing had a bead routered into it. I lost some of the detail in that with the sanding., Perhaps I could have matched that router bit and just gone over quickly with the router. But it is okay.

I did a bunch of sanding with an ordinary sanding sponge too.

I also found a few carpenter bees living in there. Not sure what to do about them.

Did you stain afterwards? How were the results?

Alex @ Nothside Power Washing

Sent from my iPhone using Pressure Washing Resource

I did put the stain on despite @rpetry’s warning. He was right. It got a little blotchy. But I got no complaints from the customer. She loves it.

1 Like