On the advice of a “professional”, I used yellow coated (sorry, I don’t know the technical term) deck screws to affix rough sawn 1X6 cedar pickets to my fence. I screwed through the face of the cedar pickets into a treated 2×4 stringer hung from the posts.
I like the mellow silver look of aged cedar and didn’t stain or otherwise finish the fence. Black staining has bled from the screw locations and run down the pickets.
I have tried using wood bleach to remove the stains. This was a very generically packaged 2 part liquid product I bought from the local hardware – it didn’t list the active ingredients etc., but behaved very much like a strong acid. It hissed and bubbled when applied, but didn’t remove the stains.
I have also tried a light hand sanding. This wasn’t effective either.
Can anyone suggest a relatively easy (this is a yard fence after all) method of removing such stains?
Norm Healey
Victoria, BC Canada.
Replies
Don't know if you can get it in Canada, but there's a product called DeksWood that should make an improvement for you, although you'll never get the stains 100% gone. Oxalic acid is the key ingredient and it's a one-part liquid, not two. Remove the yellow screws and replace them with $tainle$$ $teel.
Thanks for the advice David. I haven't been able to source Dekswood and every time I ask for oxalic acid the sales staff looks at me like I am the Unibomber. I have got stainless replacement screws though, so at least it won't get any worse.
Norm.
You're going to the wrong place. Our dinky lumber yard here has three different deck cleaner products with oxalic acid in them. Maybe it's illegal in Canada!
That "wood bleach" that you used is suppose to remove the natural color from wood (some woods), not to remove stains.
What you need is oxalic acid. You can get it on it's own or in some Deck Brightners or Deck Cleaners.
It sounds like you used zinc chromated screws. Not really suitable for this kind of usage.
You need to replace them with stainless steel or the problem will continue.