Bill,
I'm in WA as well and put a new deck in last year. I used Cabot stain and
considered using a garden pump sprayer but was hung up on the "back
brushing" as well. I ended up using paint pads (they have them for
decks/stain) mounted on the end of a paint pole or drywall sanding pole, and
a paint tray. This allowed me to coat the deck without bending over much.
This year I needed to re-stain my fence, and because it is 130' long, 6'
high solid board fence, I thought I'd use the paint sprayer method rather
than brushing. It quickly became apparent that back brushing was needed to
get any sort of uniform coverage/color. I had hoped to get away with just
spraying it, but the back brushing was really needed.
As odd as it sounds, there is a difference between spraying/back brushing,
and just brushing. Spraying gets the bulk of the material on the surface and
all you are really doing with back brushing is spreading it around more
evenly on and into the surface. Brushing alone accomplishes the same thing
but with more effort (particularly on irregular surfaces).
For a nice flat surface like a deck I would really take a look at the
deck/stain paint pads and a sanding pole. The pads are generally the same
width as your standard deck boards, and they really work the material into
the boards very well.
Wayne
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Gilroy" <wmgilroy@gmail.com>
To: "Shop-Talk Mailing List" <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 8:08 PM
Subject: Staining a deck
>
> I purchased a house with a deck attached and it needs to be stained. I
> power washed off the WA state slime and cleaned the deck with deck
> cleaner.
> Seems like that would cover the surface preparation. They also state that
> the stain can be sprayed but you must "back brush". I assume that is
> using
> a paint brush to brush in the stain that I just sprayed. If that is the
> case I would think that it would make more sense to just to use a brush,
> is
> that correct? Any ideas or pointers before I brush this stuff on this
> weekend?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
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