Going to clean a small deck in preparation for the homeowner to re-stain. Owner is using the same stain so they are not worried about having the old stain removed. Would you just DS with SH and then light pressure rinse ? Or would you still come back with oxalic to get the wood brightened up even though the owner is just going to re-stain ?
I should mention MOST of the old stain is already worn off on the deck, just along the edges and the hand railings still have stain in good shape on it.
Dont see why any reason to brighten when you are restaining. I would recommend using a transparent sealer after the staining.
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I’m not going to be re-staining, the customer wants to do it. They just want the deck cleaned, I explained to them that for the price I quoted I wouldn’t be able to remove the old stain. But I would clean it, my plan is to just clean it as I would a non color stained deck.
Stain dark colored wood on a deck and you get a dark stained deck. Stain bright colored wood on a deck and get a bright stained deck. The end result is almost always better when you brighten the wood after. Brings out the True Tone of the wood as well. But that’s if it’s bare wood. If you aren’t stripping that stain off then I agree, no reason to brighten. Image below was after brightening
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Was that just a wet down, apply sh and low pressure off prior to brightening ? And did you brighten with ox acid ?
Yes, recipe please.
I wet the surface down, let sit for a couple minutes, mixed about a cup of Sodium metasilicate per gallon of water, applied with a brush. Rinsed with about 1200 psi after 10 or so minutes then used oxalic acid and applied with a brush, let sit for another 10 or so minutes then rinsed. This is before I knew that I could have just diluted it into a pump sprayer and used a filter so I didn’t suck up any bits that didn’t dilute. I think the light agitation while applying it helped though
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Beautiful results!
I’m trying to expand my services to include wood cleaning/restoration. So if I come across a wood deck, how can I tell if it has a stain or not? And, if I determine it has a stain, what chemical can I use to strip?
I’ve been doing research on this for a few days, and I’m sorry if this has been gone over. I’m in NJ and things are getting bad over here, we’ve been hit hard by this pandemic and people are too scared to call. I don’t want to turn down any deck/fence work because I don’t know how to handle wood.
Could you just break down real quick how you would handle cleaning a dirty deck with a stain already on it? I would be super grateful.
the wizard of wood and his deck restoration school is in the pineys, hope your not competing with him.
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Haha you and me both!
