We’re want to refinish our redwood deck. Some parts are showing quite a bit of wear and the grain has risen noticably. Deckwash products won’t solve that. What’s the best way to proceed? Take the whole thing down 1/16 – 18″ like on a hardwood floor? Just sand down the worn areas and lightly sand or use deckwash stuff on the others? Ignore the grain ridges because it’ll just keep doing that and we can’t take off 1/8″ repeatedly?
Thanks!
Replies
Grain ridges are caused by pressure washing the deck. The only way to make it smooth again is sand it or replace it.
The only way to sand it is to re-set (countersink) all your existing nails before you sand, otherwise you will sand off the galvanized head.
There is no quick fix............
"Rather be a hammer than a nail"
Bob
Ever use a floor sander on a deck? My friend's mohogany deck is put down with the eb-ty system, which isn't strong enough to keep the decking in one plane; edges and ends are sticking up everywhere. I will probably screw the decking down with 3" SS, maybe plug them, maybe not. In either case, if the decking is still uneven, I thought about using a floor sander to get everything back to a level playing field.
Ever heard of that being done? Seemed more efficient than using my 3x24 belt sander.
Thanks.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
yeah, i ve had great luck using the varathane square vibrating floor sanders at hd with there heaviest paper. (sander is easy to use and pretty accurate edges) you'll also go thru the backer pads pretty fast, even faster then the paper!
i had ss screw which just ground down nicely with the wood! no problem, nice flat deck when i was done.
(about $150 bucks for a big deck (materials, rental) and about 4 hours)
I've only used a floor sander once on a deck. I applied Behr stain and it never penetrated the new wood. It was like motor oil. I waited a month for the product to penetrate and it was still tacky.
I rented a floor sander and it took a whole day just to get down to where I could re-apply Superdeck stain.The hard part is sanding around steps, benches,and posts without leaving a cross grained sanding pattern.
I did this as a last resort after trying all of Behr's deck cleaners which did not help at all.
It was just a bad batch of stain and I will never use the product again because of all the fiasco."Rather be a hammer than a nail"
Bob