# Proper sanding for good stain penetration



## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

Hello all, here's what's on my plate :

I stripped a deck of sikkens cetol SRD to upgrade it to a better product, that is actually, believe it or not, water based.

I then neutralized the stripper with a product that also bleaches the wood. I light power washed between every step.

I then belt sanded the deck using 50 grit and sometimes 36, then sanded with an orbital with 80 grit. It helped removing all remaining graying of the wood, it's looking sharp!

I went to my paint store with a small piece of wood from the deck to check the color out. We did apply the factory blend of the old Sikkens SRD to have an idea of the color match, but the guy found out that it wasn't penetrating the wood well. He then took a 120 grit sheet of sand paper and gave the wood a light sand which did help with the penetration. I think I might have sanded the wood too smooth for proper penetration. They told me not to worry too much for now as the other product should penetrate better, but still, after killing my back and working my ass off sanding the sh*t out of this deck, I'm quite discouraged at the result in terms of penetration.

Do you guys have any advice on how it should be sanded for proper stain penetration? I'm thinking of going back lightly with a hand paper to scratch the surface more without trying to remove much material.


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## doctors11 (May 17, 2010)

My guess would be you didn't change your 8og sandpaper often enough. The second it starts to "glide" across the wood, toss it and put on a new one. Also, don't use too much pressure.

80g should be fine for penetration if you completely removed the old stain and the moisture content was below 14%.

What's this fantastic new water-based stain we're talking about?


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## jacob33 (Jun 2, 2009)

80 is what we normally use but it will wear out quick and burnish the wood if that is the correct term. You need to change them out often. I think the heat from the sander can seal the wood too sometimes.


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## jacob33 (Jun 2, 2009)

If you dont want to sand it again I wonder what a light sodium hydroxide mixture followed by wood bleach (oxalic acid) would do. I know sodium hydroxide will open up the wood. Just a thought that might save sanding it all again.


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## Jmayspaint (Mar 26, 2013)

The belt sander probably wasn't a good idea, too much heat generated. I don't go higher than 60 grit on decks.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

Thanks for all your kind advice. I had to use a belt sander to remove to graying, it would have taken ages otherwise (it already took ages, so more ages it would lol). Do you have other options for quick sanding? Vibrating and orbital are slow to remove much and make the wood look bright again.

I will consider the sodium hydroxide, I will look into it. If not then I'll sand with my hand quickly with a 60 grit paper to open up the wood back a bit. I have to scratch open my wood again, at least a bit.

As for the product I use, I've discussed it in other threads, it's from a company called Sansin. With the new VOC products they make great environmental products. Their DEC product is their best semi trans they have, it's a 2 coat system. They also have another one called SDF that I wouldn't recommend on decks. I'm not familiar with all their products, they have various ones and combos for various uses that I'm still learning about. I can vouch for the DEC one, it looks great and penetrates the wood quite well. They have a color palette in 4 levels of saturation. The more saturation, the longest will last the job (and less maintenance, as pigments help with the protection).

I had a customer once not happy with the color he chose and asked me to redo the floor (fortunately I had only stained half of it). I stripped and sanded it, and let me tell you it wasn't a piece of cake!

They also have a range called ENS. Whitin that range there's an ENS solid stain, which is quite expensive (starting here in Canada at 110$ a gallon and up depending of how much coloration is needed). I haven't tried it but I was told it was the best solid stain product out there, for what that's worth. It's about double the price of california stain, so I hope it's at least somehow better than this quality product. It gives the finish a little luster, which I find looks sharp and helps with durability.

Please let me know if you have other solutions to help me with that project. Best regards to y'all!


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

Jazz_Painter said:


> Thanks for all your kind advice. I had to use a belt sander to remove to graying, it would have taken ages otherwise (it already took ages, so more ages it would lol). Do you have other options for quick sanding? Vibrating and orbital are slow to remove much and make the wood look bright again.
> 
> I will consider the sodium hydroxide, I will look into it. If not then I'll sand with my hand quickly with a 60 grit paper to open up the wood back a bit. I have to scratch open my wood again, at least a bit.
> 
> ...


Porter-Cable #7304 or a floor edger. Either one of those with 16 grit will remove the grey wood fairly quickly.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

Isn't 16 grit a bit gross for the task?


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

Jazz_Painter said:


> Isn't 16 grit a bit gross for the task?


It does take a little finesse, but does the job well...and does it quickly.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

Gough said:


> It does take a little finesse, but does the job well...and does it quickly.


Good. One more concern about these tools is that many decks here are made from treated pine wood or cedar boards and the boards are separated like in this picture. http://www.lowes.com/images/LCI/Planning/HowTos/ht_CleanandSealYourDeck_water-test.jpg

The wood is not perfectly even, and the boards wrap a bit, even before you buy them! 

Are these tools, well operated, good for this situation or are made for relatively more flat surfaces?

Regards


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## Jmayspaint (Mar 26, 2013)

A rotary, or disc sander is what a lot of people use when more power is required than a random orbital. A floor edger falls into that category. 

I like this cheap one pretty good,

http://www.dewalt.com/tools/woodworking-sanders-random-orbital-sanders-dwe6401ds.aspx

It says "random orbital" in the link for some reason, but this is not a random orbit sander. 

You can buy better ones. Festoon makes one that will switch from random orbit to aggressive (rotary) mode I think. 

The difference is these sanders spin at high speed with no randomness to the orbit. If you need to cut through some wood, they are way faster than random orbit. 

They produce some heat also, and it takes some getting used to the power. But they work great for rough sanding and fast removal of product/layers of wood once you get the hang of it.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

I think the biggest trick with the more aggressive paper and grinders, etc. (like the PC 7304 and a floor edger) is to work with the grain. That makes is a lot easier and faster to come back with nos. 36 and 60 to get the deck ready to stain.

What we really like about the PC 7304, and its older cousin, the 304, are the carbide sanding discs. They are metal, with tungsten carbide grit. Think of them as permanent 
sandpaper, or very nearly so. They can also be replaced with floor edger sanding discs for use when the the discs load very quickly. 

BTW, when the metal discs load with paint or resin, we drop 'em in a can with some lacquer thinner to clean them up. We've had discs than we've used for years.


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

So, it sounds like you basically gave the wood a new "mill glaze" with your sanding. Given that that's the case, have you tried something like a wood brightener? Benjamin Moore 317 (Brighten) and Penofin Wood Brightener are both spec'd to remove the mill glaze, which is a similar effect. Might be worth trying a sample piece this way to see if it can save you from needing to re-sand the entire thing.


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## ExcelPaintingCo (Apr 16, 2011)

DrakeB said:


> So, it sounds like you basically gave the wood a new "mill glaze" with your sanding. Given that that's the case, have you tried something like a wood brightener? Benjamin Moore 317 (Brighten) and Penofin Wood Brightener are both spec'd to remove the mill glaze, which is a similar effect. Might be worth trying a sample piece this way to see if it can save you from needing to re-sand the entire thing.


 see my thread on mill glaze in the picture forum. Brightener didn't do much. Sanding with a ro90, 60-80 grit turned the wood into a sponge. Anything finer than 80 might polish the surface too much. 60-80 grit sanding is perfect to maximize absorbency.


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

ExcelPaintingCo said:


> see my thread on mill glaze in the picture forum. Brightener didn't do much. Sanding with a ro90, 60-80 grit turned the wood into a sponge. Anything finer than 80 might polish the surface too much. 60-80 grit sanding is perfect to maximize absorbency.


Will have a look, sounds interesting.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

DrakeB said:


> So, it sounds like you basically gave the wood a new "mill glaze" with your sanding. Given that that's the case, have you tried something like a wood brightener? Benjamin Moore 317 (Brighten) and Penofin Wood Brightener are both spec'd to remove the mill glaze, which is a similar effect. Might be worth trying a sample piece this way to see if it can save you from needing to re-sand the entire thing.


I used the wood brightener that came with the Sansin stripper. It was a power I mixed with water that neutralized the stripper and bleached at the same time. It helped a lot with the look, but still needed to sand.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

ExcelPaintingCo said:


> see my thread on mill glaze in the picture forum. Brightener didn't do much. Sanding with a ro90, 60-80 grit turned the wood into a sponge. Anything finer than 80 might polish the surface too much. 60-80 grit sanding is perfect to maximize absorbency.


I'm doing a very very quick sanding with a vibrating random sander with 60 grain paper and test with my hand. If I can feel the wood grain with my hand I feel confident applying the stain.

For future projects like this one I'll change papers more often and be careful with the finer sanding. I'll start with 36 grain belt then 60 rotary and vibrating.

I'll also look into those more powerful sanders. However I'm afraid of doing circle marks in the wood, so proper knowledge of the tool usage will be required.

There's also sanding disks that you can put on your grinder. Ever heard/used those? http://www.weem-abrasives.com/photo..._flap_discs_zirconia_alumina_sanding_disc.jpg


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## Seth The Painter (Jun 24, 2015)

Jazz_Painter said:


> I used the wood brightener that came with the Sansin stripper. It was a power I mixed with water that neutralized the stripper and bleached at the same time. It helped a lot with the look, but still needed to sand.


That might be your problem. I've used cheap wood brightners that where not nearly as good as the more expensive ones. It's like you pay for what you get.


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## Jazz_Painter (Feb 22, 2015)

Seth The Painter said:


> That might be your problem. I've used cheap wood brightners that where not nearly as good as the more expensive ones. It's like you pay for what you get.


I understand, but honestly I think this product is very good. It's a package (gallon of stripper, bag of powdered neutreulizer/whiterner), but it doesn't mean it's cheap.

I'll keep that in mind for future jobs, but I really think the problem was the sanding. We had quite humid and rainy weather, so I just put the first coat yesterday and the wood drank like a fish! About to put the second coat today and get done with this 1000 square feet deck!


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

Glad it's working out for you!

Regarding the brightener- as far as breaking mill glaze, at least- I know it works in some situations. Maybe it's the wood, maybe it's the sanding, maybe it's the product- who knows. Not sure why you and Excel have had bad luck with it, but it can work in _some_ cases at least. Now I'm curious what variables lead to it not.


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Don't bother buying most of the premade brighteners. They are to low in concentration to be effective. Buy something like this and you can mix to whatever strength you need. It will fur wood opening it up. 

http://pressuretek.com/f8nubr.html


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## Seth The Painter (Jun 24, 2015)

I didn't mean to say the product you used was cheap. I said I used them before. Never had outstanding results. I hope it turns out great.


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