On this deck staining job we were applying a solid stain to this deck and the surrounding lattice. The first step was to eliminate any ‘mill glaze’ as well as prepare the surface for staining. Mill glaze comes from new wood, the wood is ‘mill glazed’ during the process of chopping the wood, when the blade touches the wood it will give it a ‘glaze’. Mill glaze is widely accepted but some people have a differing opinion.
The flat deck surfaces are paid special attention, these surfaces are given a good sanding with a power sander. The sanding will break up the mill glaze and the initial layer of wood to allow the stain to saturate deep inside, providing a great deck stain finish. The mill glaze effect can also be remedied by leaving the wood to “sit” for a year after it came from the mill, this allows the environment and time to wear down the mill glaze. After the sanding we vacuumed up as much wood dust as we could as well as used the blow setting to get any other pesky dust particles out of the way, leaving us with a perfect deck surface ready to be stained.
Stain is unlike paint in many ways. If the deck stain is not applied correctly the stain will just not look right. Paint can be applied where some areas have a slight overlap creating a tiny extra coat on this overlap and you wouldn’t be able to see the difference. Providing that the paint is of a high hide and very opaque by nature. On the otherhand, deck stain allows you to see every layer. So you want to coat an area with one application as best as possible. If it needs a second then you do the same thing do the whole area uniformly. Areas that do happen to get a little extra may produce a stronger color or different sheen.
You can see in the stain application video above how the boards of the deck are being stained. If you notice we stain only the individual boards one at a time. This systematic approach to applying the stain ensures we apply an even coat to each board. If we stained the boards without such precision chances are very good there would be an overlap. This stain overlap would appear as a difference in the deck stain’s sheen, in other words it would appear to be a little more glossy on the overlap. To finish off a board its best to run your brush along the whole board in one stroke to eliminate any other brush marks and get a uniform finish. On this deck stain site we sprayed all vertical surfaces such as lattice, extremely reducing the amount of time and labour required as well as providing a flawless finish. At the end of the above stain application video you can see the finished results.