# Stripping Paint off Decks



## ThreeSistersPainting

Today we stripped an oil base paint off the front porch and a water base paint off the larger back porch. We rocked our Bosch 6" sanders with 40 grit all day, then 80, and followed by 120. Still not quite done but the bulk of it is done. 
P.S. I was given a sample gallon of Storm Wood Stripper from my Miller Rep to try out on these and it proved ineffective, so we stuck with sanding.


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## Jmayspaint

Cool. As sucky and labor intensive as that is, it's strangely satisfying to power sand a coating off of wood. It makes such a dramatic difference. 

I share the preference of sanding over chems for sure. 

Could be a mobile or app issue, but your pics are showing up as broken. Can't access them. 


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## SemiproJohn

I haven't tried it, but I will be "that guy" and ask: What about first pressure washing with a turbo nozzle? If held at the right distance, would it not strip the paint faster than a sander, and without raising the grain too much? Perhaps saving a round or two of sanding with successively finer grits....

Just throwing it out there, hack as it sounds.


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## PNW Painter

In the past I've used 36 grit followed by 60 grit on my Festool Rotax 125. It works well, but it is time consuming and back breaking work.

I'd like to try the Diamabrush for Wood, decks and siding. Their version for concrete works so well that it would be interesting to see how it works when hooked up to an angle grinder with a dust shroud.

http://m.homedepot.com/p/Diamabrush-4-5-in-50-Grit-Wood-Deck-Tool-9304501240-50/206926302


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## ThreeSistersPainting

Here's the final outcome! We painted there whole house white with Miller Evolution then stained the decks with Ready Seal Pecan


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## ridesarize

That is tough looking at that large deck, my hands are toast from today's work.. I just sanded on a smaller deck today and got half done with the first pass with 40 grit. I was using the RO 150 to sand through a lot of dead-wood and then deeper to remove black marks, and stain-like marks that went deep. The power from that machine really torques on the body and back, and ya really feel it after a few hours...

I had to start out by setting 1100 nails and they were difficult ones. They took way more hits to set them than usual, and the heads got mangled on a few that wouldn't set.

Oh and I only hit my hand with the hammer like 20 times, not bad out of about 10,000 hammer strikes to the nailset.


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## PRC

ridesarize said:


> That is tough looking at that large deck, my hands are toast from today's work.. I just sanded on a smaller deck today and got half done with the first pass with 40 grit. I was using the RO 150 to sand through a lot of dead-wood and then deeper to remove black marks, and stain-like marks that went deep. The power from that machine really torques on the body and back, and ya really feel it after a few hours...
> 
> I had to start out by setting 1100 nails and they were difficult ones. They took way more hits to set them than usual, and the heads got mangled on a few that wouldn't set.
> 
> Oh and I only hit my hand with the hammer like 20 times, not bad out of about 10,000 hammer strikes to the nailset.


That's hard work. We did a couple decks this way and it takes a toll on the body. If I may make few suggestions to make life easier . For the nails we made our own driver, a 3' ground rod with the end tapered to a blunt point. That and a 4# sledgehammer makes for 1 hit sets from standing. 
If you must strip by sanding then the RAS is the tool you need. It's not anywhere near as tiring to operate as a Rotex. The 50 grit is usually enough but we have used 24 for an inital pass. We always finish up with the RO150 but it's an easy pass.
The best thing we did was switch to chems for deck restoration. A little sanding is still needed but the whole process is easier and faster.


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## ridesarize

PRC said:


> That's hard work. We did a couple decks this way and it takes a toll on the body. If I may make few suggestions to make life easier . For the nails we made our own driver, a 3' ground rod with the end tapered to a blunt point. That and a 4# sledgehammer makes for 1 hit sets from standing.
> If you must strip by sanding then the RAS is the tool you need. It's not anywhere near as tiring to operate as a Rotex. The 50 grit is usually enough but we have used 24 for an inital pass. We always finish up with the RO150 but it's an easy pass.
> The best thing we did was switch to chems for deck restoration. A little sanding is still needed but the whole process is easier and faster.


The deck I'm working on is 12 years old untreated cedar and only covered with the patio roof. It was completely greyed out and is more weathered near the edges that get sun and rain. 
I hit it with 2 applications of Daly's Wood Bleach A + B and scrubbed a lot of grey wood off and rinsed. I didn't power wash due to my pump needing tp be replaced.. 
In this picture, you can see how grey it is, and that is after the bleaching...


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## ridesarize

PNW Painter said:


> In the past I've used 36 grit followed by 60 grit on my Festool Rotax 125. It works well, but it is time consuming and back breaking work.
> 
> I'd like to try the Diamabrush for Wood, decks and siding. Their version for concrete works so well that it would be interesting to see how it works when hooked up to an angle grinder with a dust shroud.
> 
> http://m.homedepot.com/p/Diamabrush-4-5-in-50-Grit-Wood-Deck-Tool-9304501240-50/206926302
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Looks like it would be worth trying on a difficult deck job or removing some tough material.


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## stelzerpaintinginc.

ThreeSistersPainting said:


> Today we stripped an oil base paint off the front porch and a water base paint off the larger back porch. We rocked our Bosch 6" sanders with 40 grit all day, then 80, and followed by 120. Still not quite done but the bulk of it is done.
> P.S. I was given a sample gallon of Storm Wood Stripper from my Miller Rep to try out on these and it proved ineffective, so we stuck with sanding.


Looks like it's gonna turn out great. I understand wanting to get the wood smooth and flat by using 120 grit, but you might want to at least finish it off using nothing finer than 80 grit. Any finer than 80 grit will prevent new stain from absorbing to its' full potential. FWIW, most store-bought strippers are way too weak to be effective on a larger scale.


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## PNW Painter

ridesarize said:


> The deck I'm working on is 12 years old untreated cedar and only covered with the patio roof. It was completely greyed out and is more weathered near the edges that get sun and rain.
> I hit it with 2 applications of Daly's Wood Bleach A + B and scrubbed a lot of grey wood off and rinsed. I didn't power wash due to my pump needing tp be replaced..
> In this picture, you can see how grey it is, and that is after the bleaching...




Did you use a wood stripper first or just the Wood Bleach? Based on the spec sheet it sounds like you need to strip the surface before using the wood bleach. 

Daly's products are pretty popular with many painters in Seattle, but I don't have a lot of experience using many of their products.

https://www.dalyswoodfinishes.com/PDF/specs/S-AnBbleach.pdf


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## ridesarize

PNW Painter said:


> Did you use a wood stripper first or just the Wood Bleach? Based on the spec sheet it sounds like you need to strip the surface before using the wood bleach.
> 
> Daly's products are pretty popular with many painters in Seattle, but I don't have a lot of experience using many of their products.
> 
> https://www.dalyswoodfinishes.com/PDF/specs/S-AnBbleach.pdf
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Just used wood bleach system first. The deck had no finish on it at all. To be honest I wanted to try BM Restore and brightener but we only had brightener and the Daly's bleach with us when we went to get a sample approved. The bleached wood looked pretty good, and my boss (GC) came out the next day to sand the sample spot and the client approved that method so I was stuck with it. 
After applying the bleach to this particular deck on both coats, it created all kinds of sludge, wood pulp like a stripper would do. With scrubbing a lot of dead wood came off actually, but just needed to get sanded to reach that healthy looking wood. 
I do wish I would have power washed (washer needs repair at the moment) it to clean up the gaps in between the boards that doesn't get sanded though.


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## ridesarize

I uploaded videos of the deck job to YT. Just to give a little demo of Festool and some deck prep info to the diyers out there. I changed my yt nickname to painting to ride but will be changing it again to XC Painter as soon as it lets me


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