wilkes

Next, you will be trying biodiesel, it strips off about anything... Make an alkaline solution if you want to clean something, oxy-clean, biz, clorox-2, etc works well.

If you sip the vodka, you won't give a crap if the stain don't match LOL

you can crawl under that deck and pound those boards up gently with a block of wood and a hammer. Just pop them a few times, come back topside and gently pry them up. put a piece of scrap wood betwixt your deck board and your pry bar, so you dont ding and mark that wood.

3 deckboards are easy to replace. It doesnt matter if there is framing to hide the end.

I just can't figure out how I'm supposed to sleep tonight, with my hands smelling like soap, salt, and vodka!

If any of you see me at the Apple Festival and think I smell strongly of vodka...

Gee, thanks Tussock! Now Jason is on the deck drinking vodka and spilling more stain on the deck.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Definitions
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – “VOCs are ground-water contaminants of concern because of very large environmental releases, human toxicity, and a tendency for some compounds to persist in and migrate with ground-water to drinking-water supply wells….In general, VOCs have high vapor pressures, low-to-medium water solubilities, and low molecular weights. Some VOCs may occur naturally in the environment, other compounds occur only as a result of manmade activities, and some compounds have both origins.” - Zogorski and others, 2006

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – “Volatile organic compounds released into the atmosphere by anthropogenic and natural emissions which are important because of their involvement in photochemical pollution.” - Lincoln and others, 1998

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – “Hydrocarbon compounds that have low boiling points, usually less than 100ºC, and therefore evaporate readily. Some are gases at room temperature. Propane, benzene, and other components of gasoline are all volatile organic compounds.” - Art, 1993

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – “VOCs are organic compounds that can be isolated from the water phase of a sample by purging the water sample with inert gas, such as helium, and, subsequently, analyzed by gas chromatography. Many VOCs are human-made chemicals that are used and produced in the manufacture of paints, adhesives, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, and refrigerants. They often are compounds of fuels, solvents, hydraulic fluids, paint thinners, and dry-cleaning agents commonly used in urban settings. VOC contamination of drinking water supplies is a human-health concern because many are toxic and are known or suspected human carcinogens.” - U.S. Geological Survey, 2005

regular vodka, BUT FIRST see what the website says about the higher voc cleanup. voc refers to volatile organic compound and that is for flammability and danger to the environment. volatile also refers to its evaporation rate, at room temp.

No moonshine, but I have vodka! Would that work?

Grape, lemon, or regular?

moonshine works too. no joke.

Well... it said 535VOC, but the website just has 250VOC and 550VOC! I have no idea what the codes mean, but I'm guessing that since 550VOC is closer then it would be the one to follow?

Either way, I have soap on it right now, and am about to water it down. I don't have any mineral spirits on hand, anyway.

Jason, go back to the page, look on the left side, there is a clean up section. In there it gives codes for your individual can. Using those codes you can tell what your clean up method should be. The codes on the can are key to matching your can to the manufacturers recommended clean up. Go to the page, write the code down from the clean up section, and compare it to your can.

The can doesn't actually say anything about clean-up, other than that the use of a wire brush could potentially cause a fire

Quack... I just had the darn thing built! LOL

if the stain has set, use lacqer thinner. Also read the can, it describes TWO different types of clean-up on that page. If you have the soap and water version, goof off will work very well. Try flipping and helicoptering as well. you might get lucky.

I think the time has come to tear the deck down and rebuild.

laquer thinner, read the can and see what it says about clean up as well, I don't think paint thinner will help too much.

I just found it online; it's definitely oil based:

http://www.olympic.com/stai...ximum.aspx

try laquer thinner if paint thinner does not work, but again there are always old unused boards leftover from someone elses project. goof-off works if it is a latex based product. Good luck....

Not yet; I don't have any handy, and I began this thread less than an hour after the spill. All I've tried at this point is a thick layer of salt, per Hipower's suggestion.

Just curious but have you tried paint thinner?

That's probably what I'll do. The guy that built the deck cut each board to fit manually, so they're parallelogram-ish, but not exact.

I was really hoping for a faster solution; we've only been able to spend an hour or two each sunny day to stain the deck, and it's taking forever!