Deck finished today.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

Latest Deck clean and stain. Stained with AC Cedar Semi

[John-Clean County PW]

Looks real nice. I'm sure your customer was real happy. Did you spray the stain on?? If it was me I would have.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

Happy enough to write a check. LOL

Yes I sprayed but you waste alot of stain doing this on the railings. Going to try a staining pad and/or roller next time just to see what it takes.

[FLORIN]

Happy enough to write a check. LOL

Yes I sprayed but you waste alot of stain doing this on the railings. Going to try a staining pad and/or roller next time just to see what it takes.

I too used to paintbrush, pad, and roll the rails because i was wasting stain. But later on I came to the realization that my time was more important than the extra gallon of stain. Now we just throw a tarp on the other side ti minimize overspray, we shoot at an angle that gets most stain on the wood rather than in between the rails and another guy follows to back brush and wipe up excess. We can do a rail set on a deck really quickly and then we can move on to the next job.

BTW your deck looks great. I like that color.

[PressurePros]

Saw this on TGS... nice job! A couple more and you'll be an official woody. One thing I've done recently is build spray guns with quick coupled lances that can accept different spray tips.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

Thanks. It's just going to take some practice on the railings.

Ken got any pics of those spray guns?

[Johnny T]

Saw this on TGS... nice job! A couple more and you'll be an official woody. One thing I've done recently is build spray guns with quick coupled lances that can accept different spray tips.

Ken, what are you spraying the decks with? I tried once and got overspray over about a square mile. Are you using pump ups, flat tips or cone? Why is spraying decks such a fail for me? Do you drop the deck, do the railing first, then spray and backbrush the floor? Right now I am brushing everything.

[PressurePros]

I don't have any pictures but they are standard trigger guns (w/ceramic balls) with quick couplers at the end to use various length lances. At the end of the lance is another quick coupler. I'm still experimenting with nozzles but a 15 degree works well on spindles and a 65 degree on the floor. Orifice size will depend on your pump. I like around 70 psi for oils.

John, I use constant flow pump setups like the deckster. I have one deckster portable and two truck mounted pumps. For rails, cut yourself a 2'x'4' to somewhere between 6' and 8'. WalMart sells sheets for under $4. Staple a sheet to one of those two by fours and stick it on the rails. spray one side and move it to the next length of rail. Leave some overhang on the edges of the two by so that you can pull it around posts. Repeat for the other side. This catches the overspray right away.

You still have to tarp in many scenarios. We cover all houses with plastic. Four us, it goes very fast as we do it all the time. Setup including sanding takes about 30 minutes. Once you have your protection in place it goes very fast.

We spray the floor with a very light coat before we do any spindles. When the rails are done and everything is cut in, we use an 18" truck brush to apply a final coat to the floor.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

Thanks for the hints Ken. I will try the sheet method on the next one. That very well may be mine. I did have plastic even covering the brick below. I did have some overspray on the vinyl that I did not notice until I had taken down the plastic and doing one final inspection. A little Krud Kutter and a papertowel took care of it though.

This is a brand new subdivision and they are still building houses. Going to canvas this weekend with flyers. This is the only home owner that has had his deck finished. I am going to experiment with the wands. One question is what GPM rate do you use on your pumps? Or do you restrict that with the tips?

[PressurePros]

Pat, the pumps are around 1.5 gpm.

As an alternate you can attach the sheet (or tarp or burlap) directly to the handrail via stapling. Do one side, flip the sheet and do the other.