Guys, have a big treat for you within next week. Think we may have a real true wood restoration craftsman joining us on here. I’ve seen a bunch of his pics and they make anything else I’ve seen on here, look like we’re beginners. Some amazing work.
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I dunno…I hate to brag, but, I’m pretty damn good 
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“pretty good” being the operative word. lol. Seriously, you’ll like seeing some of his work. Does a lot of work with mahogany, teak and ipe, which is lot nicer wood than we’re use to dealing with.
He’s from up around Boston and does work on some huge McMansions up there. Been doing it for 30 years
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hopefully he has some tips on multilayered painted decks that won’t strip. I know I could re strip it, but man did I flood the yard. Otherwise I am spending lots of quality sanding time. It had three coats of sherwin williams paint on it. You could see the layers coming off. Actually had a riser that wouldn’t strip down at all, well maybe one coat came off, but anyone who does it knows the shaded areas don’t strip as well as the sun beat areas. I’m hitting it with 40 grit, then buffing with the osborn and not working through the grits. Wonder if the alcohol solutions would be ideal in that situation. I just don’t want to get into stripping with multiple different chemicals on one gig.
On a side note, I am putting in more pools this year than last. Rookie on the crew, so my buddy needs me to help. I gotta blame some of these fathers, these young kids don’t know how to screw anything or how to use a drill. Tried explaining to hold the drill at the right angle and not to muscle it, to let the drill do the work. Look over 30 seconds later and they are still screwing at weird angles and pushing for all they are worth. Maybe it is experience, who knows, I don’t think I was that bad at that age.
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Right back at you brother, kinda feeling bad now that rick wood shamed me 
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How dare he shame our wood!
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I look forward to seeing what he’s done. I’ll be up in Boston later this year so maybe I can inspect his work firsthand and give him the Billy Ball Buster Stamp of Approval
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He’s a painting contractor who contacted me because they do these huge homes and wants a better way to clean them, ie faster. They’re still doing old school, in some cases pump up and brushing. He had seen this thread so reached out. He doesn’t have to personally do a lot of the standard painting but loves restoring wood and has been doing forever.
Besides painting he restores antique furniture and just did a bunch of mahogany interior doors for ‘This Old House’ show.
Here are a few pics he sent me.
Some garage doors -
House and doors
Deck on the waterfront
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Meanwhile back in Redneck country, house I surface cleaned deck on about 15 months ago is on the rental market. Guy I did for bought a new house so they have pics of rental online. Still looks pretty darn good. Actually have to go back this week and clean fence so hopefully where he put up random new boards, will all blend in together sooner.
Before
Immediately after
After 15 months
House wash mix - 5min dwell and 20-30min with SC
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Lol that fence looks like a guy going through a midlife crisis. Hair’s all turning gray so he decides to dye it but forgets about his eyebrows and ear hairs 
Even still, I bet it will blend pretty decently especially if you can use some SM. That stuff really opens up the wood and lets the color come back out
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That deck is beautiful. Looks like he’s got some pretty talented hands, too. Hard to find guys that can deliver those results even if you teach them everything you know.
@BradenC , this is for you. Fence I did a month ago, over 10 years old, in terrible shape on sun side as you’ll see in pics. Didn’t take any before pics. They’re building new house and just wanted cleaned up before they put on market. May or may not stain this Summer.
First 2 pics is where I did a sample in a hidden corner for them while washing house 2 years ago when they were thinking about staining. They never did. Just to give you an idea of what fence looked like then. It hadn’t gotten any better with age, lol. The panels I’d done still looked fairly decent.
This are the pics from fence exactly 1 month after doing - Regular HW mix applied liberally and then rinsed thoroughly with a 3-7gpm M5 tip on my 8gpm machine which is about 700psi pressure. I never apply anything to neutralize unless I’m going to be immediately staining within the next week. You can see by the warped boards on the one side where sun kills how bad a shape it was in. But the rest looks good, actually better in person than pics show.
Total distance was 180 ft times both sides, so 360 l/f - 6’ tall - total time was about 90 min. Soaped one side at a time, went back to start of that side and started rinsing, so dwell time was anywhere from 5min to 15min.
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@Gunny - you should swing back by that deck you did a few weeks ago and take some pics
Took me a while but finally read this whole post lol. Dang it was a lot. But about to start posting my before and after here soon. Got a deck this week. Going the sodium meta route and ox after. Going to deck scrub the meta and see if I can use J rod fan tip to rinse it off. Trying to avoid the high ish pressures even from a distance. Will see how it goes. Last deck I did we used low ish pressure. Don’t have a dry after pic just a wet after. But also used rinse meta rinse ox rinse method.
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Also didn’t stain or anything after. Or sand. But really there was so little furring we thought we were the best ever lol. Sure they won’t all be that way.
I’m not knocking your work, just a couple of questions out of curiosity - Why did you choose metasilicate as your cleaning agent? I didn’t notice much organic growth on the deck, unless the picture is deceiving. Did the meta silicate do anything to the vinyl or did you mask the vinyl? I see two types of plastic there, the siding and the lattice. Why did you choose oxalic, was there rust present? I’m just curious I don’t see rusted heads on the deck.
I envy your close to the ground deck. Did you get the fence too? They don’t want you to stain it?
people are crazy. Why do all that and not protect the wood, it will be silver in less than a year in my area (we have winter snow).
So we soak the siding before during and after but we also spray away from it. Angle the pump sprayer or bucket pump away from siding so it doesn’t have much of a chance to hit siding. Sometimes we use cardboard or something to prevent splash back. Also why we used the metasilicate. Honestly every time we do wood we use it and get amazing results. Sometimes we dilute it down more if it’s not terrible growth. Never much furring. But second side to that. We have never used percarbonate. Just never bought it I guess. As far as using Ox we would rather have the stuff that helps with the rust but even if there isn’t rust it works. And please criticize me if you can I like to learn and be humbled ya know.
They are going to stain them selves and the fence will be next month they said.
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Are you trying to get him to think or are you bustin’ his chops for using SM and ox?
I was genuinely curious as to the choices made and the rationale. In this case I wanted to know why, in case something changed and I was unaware. Personally, I haven’t found a need for metasilicate yet, although I have seen it used and tried it out at a training. I still use the same things mainly: sodium percarbonate, sodium or potassium hydroxide, oxalic or citric acid.
Edit: Forgot my butyl boost
