Fishers Oil Base Deck

Ryan and I finally completed a very challenged deck in Fishers. When I first looked at the deck, it looked like the typical deck that just needed a good pressure washing and then apply the stain. Boy, was I wrong.

The deck was 11 years old and for the first 8 years, the customer had put Thompson water sealer on the deck. Then he decided to stain it with a McKlosky (no longer in business) oil base stain. He put multiple coats on several boards and also replaced several boards. So the deck floor had a very inconsistent look.  This issue was not going to be resolved because the customer wanted to use a semi-transparent stain in a lighter color (dark brown to cedar looking). We were also afraid an oil base stain would not bond because of multiple coats on some of the boards. Oil base is different than waterborne stain in that it seals the deck and if you try to put anything over it, it may not bond and just peel off - even after several years. 

So we stripped the entire deck in order to remove the previous oil base stain.  In fact, we had to strip it twice.  The deck actually had a cedar look when we were done. We would have put a waterbone stain on at that time, but the railing and spindles still had some oil base on them so we went to a Sherwin Williams DeckScape oil base stain.

Steps:

1. Pressure washed railing, spindles, bench, and floor;
2. Stripped the deck floor, bench, and spindles (not as intense). We were just looking for a more consistent look for the spindles. We were not worried about the stain not bonding;
3. Let dry;
4. Stripped the deck again;
5. Let dry;
6. Applied stain to railing and spindles on one day;
7. Applied stain to floor and bench on another day;
8. Walk-through with customer. They were happy with the look.

Photos:

1st round of stripping

Ryan finishing stripping in the rain

 Deck floor stained and drying

 Deck floor drying with 3 boards left

 Deck floor drying - different view

 Deck floor drying - different view

 Deck floor drying -  another view

Deck floor - drying

Ryan finishing up

 Deck still wet from pressure washing