The second pic shows you that this deck has a pool in the center, and what a good dose of hydroxide and a long dwell time coupled with heat and pressure does to remove this surface (I know I’m not supposed to use heat and/or pressure, but it is getting stripped down)
if you can’t walk away, like I couldn’t here for my buddy, forget what you know about chems they won’t touch it.
A diamabrush is good for about 4 hours of work, by then you have hit enough screw heads or angle brackets or whatever to damage it. You may have thought you had most countersunk, but no, they reappear.
36 grit or lower on the sander, I’m thinking if I got one of these to do again, I might even go drum sander this stuff (where it stuck) was so hard 60 grit wouldn’t touch it. It laughed in your face and mocked you. 36 grit wouldn’t take it down. Diamabrush is a lot of work.
Heat kinda worked, not high heat, I wiould try very hight heat next time. I had it to 90, thought it was enough. It did make some of the elostomeric stuff come up. I’m tempted to try 140 - shocking as it might sound, it is going to get mechanically sanded anyway. who cares if it furs, it is getting sanded anyway - less diamabrushing the better.
Have fun and don’t worry about the pool, he is changing the liner anyway so I could have filled it with garbage from home.
On a side note, I personally have about 12-14 hours into this deck. I figure with what is left I would have at least another 4-9 hours or work. All said and done I wouldn’t bid this deck for less than 2900, home owner supply’s water, electricity, and refuse disposal, if they can’t charge more. You can only paint these decks again, no stain. If you would want to stain it figure at least doubling the man hours, the chemicals, and the water and electricty.
Additionally, an 8 gpm unit tears through a lot of water on this thing, on the gun constantly.
Not yet. I’m at 148 days assuming I’m actually able to complete all my stuff retirement stuff on time which remains to be seen. I’m not stressing over it. Just trying to keep my junior sailors safe and staying hunkered down myself as much as I can.
Pun intended, but if your going to get into the pool dive into the deep end is my way of thinking. I figure it like this, if I can tackle one of the worst jobs you could possibly do for a friend, it is all gravy from there.
After my second or third hour with a diamabrush I was seriously regretting having him as my friend Seriously though, with all the help he has given me over the years, I couldn’t help but do my best for him. Just so you know what type of friend this is, when my brother and I were in the military and far away, he spent a weekend helping my mother move. We were poor and she couldn’t hire someone to move her and she didn’t own a truck. How do you repay a guy like that.
If i has the chance to do this deck you did, I would have used the 20in floor polisher with the course pad, think extremely course. I’ve used them before with light pressure as needed to remove stuck on carpet pad that had merged somehow and was epoxylike. It worked great. I didn’t know enough to use a belt sander afterwards, and that would have made all the difference. Looked like this, coukd have been exactly this, it was 20yrs ago so cant be 100% positive. Forgot to put pic of machine kr similar machine I used wayback when. Instead of a brush it had self sticking sanding pads of all type of grit.
I know a drum sander will tear through it, the problem is that they are very aggressive. Usually the orbital sander will take down painted decks, but this stuff was thick. Normally it is drum sander, floor orbital sander, then random orbitals if needed, grit higher as you smooth, but decks wouldn’t go over 60 or so. This is the sander I was using https://americansanders.com/2016/04/obs-18-obs-18dc/
The problem with PT pine decks is that the wood is so soft, unlike a hardwood floor. I actually asked the wood guy at his class and he said that they didn’t have much luck with the buffers like you showed, he uses the OBS from american (saw at least 4 in his garage).
I have been on several painting forums to see what they have to say. Most say the same thing, replace the boards that it is too labor intensive to strip the deck over coating. Although with all the custom cuts on this one (to fit an oval pool) I don’t think it would be cheaper, unless you did it yourself. If you hired a contractor you would pay for the removal and the installation, plus the marked up lumber. Removing screwed down decking boards, and he didn’t use stainless screws, means many busted and stripped out heads, and sawzalls, pry bars etc… A rough calculation for his deck would be about $900 in lumber.
One interesting thing came up several times, they were suggesting using boiling water. The elastomeric coating is hard, When it actually adheres to the surface, but if you heat it up enough it moves. Wish I would have jacked the heat up further to see, 90 was melting the top layer off, but I was on the gun a long time. If it would only have been one coat or maybe two things would have been different.
hydroxide kinda got the top layer off. In the places where it had flaked previously and they sanded it out and painted it on again, it did take that down (not completely though). Some of this stuff stuck on the wood so hard it was almost like an epoxy coating. It didn’t come up easily. I saved a set of steps to use marine grade stripper on, I will let you know if it works.
I believe, but would need another one to see, high heat and some pressure, then a stripper followed by a ph balance,and a floor sander after it dried, would make it nice. The problem with staining it is all the crap in between the boards, can’t really attack that mechanically. I forget who said he used sandpaper on a sawzall blade for between the boards, but that would take hours.
I think I’m rambling now. I am hoping that I can come up with a way to defeat this because a lot of people have it on their decks and want it gone. Behr got sued over this junk. Funny thing is, his deck wasn’t in that bad a shape when he put it on there. That big of a deck, by a pool, only 4-5 boards had to be replaced.
Like you said you had to do it for this guy , Deckover is the one thing I won’t even entertain and 2900.00 would be way to cheap for the hours you have in this one. Good on you for taking care of those that took care of your Mom.
@UncleRicoRules unless it’s for a friend I would not do the job. Read this thread. He did another one as well. Everyone agrees RUN away do not walk away.
Absolutely. The pwra is awsome. I love it here. Been using it for a couple years now. Thanks @Dirtyboy and @TexasPressureWashing for helping me dodge a bullet. Haha
I won’t disagree with you, but simply state that each market is different. In my area 3k would be considered high by many. Although, for some odd reason, people love throwing good money after bad and would pay to just have it repainted over what existed. His deck was around 9 gallons - about 300 in paint alone.
Look forward to seeing some more of your projects.
Seriously though, with all the help he has given me over the years, I couldn’t help but do my best for him. Just so you know what type of friend this is, when my brother and I were in the military and far away, he spent a weekend helping my mother move. We were poor and she couldn’t hire someone to move her and she didn’t own a truck. How do you repay a guy like that.
