Repainting Deck.... fun with cabot deck correct

For all the small holes and ratty areas where may you have a large split or a small knot hole you can use paintable adhesive caulking. Easy as can be. just use a screwdriver or something to pick out of rotted edges so that what is left is solide. squeeze a little caulking compond in there or along the crank. Smooth it with you finger and paint over it when it is dry. (don't do that if staining, the stain won't go into the caulking. You can do lots of touch up work with that. It's a beautiful thing.

Large holes need a different plan of attack depending on what the layout of the deck is. Say, for example, if you had a higher deck and could walk or crawl under it, the best thing to do would be to put some "backing" on the board behind the hole. In other words, use the adhesive caulking compound to "glue" a small piece of wood slight larger than the hole underneath the hole. Then when that has set and hardened. Go back to deck and fill it the hole with wood filler which can't fall out due to the backing. Works well if you can get under the deck, not so well if you can;t. Sometimes the hole occurs in short piece of decking wood and you can pry the decking board up - flip it over and put backing under the hole- then re-nail the board down again and fill the hole. Works okay if you have a small board that is still strong and just dropped a know and left a big hole. Does not work so well if it is a longer board that has aged-out because the board is likely to fall apart even more if you pry up a long section.

Anyway. for the large number of ratty little blemishes and very small knot holes, consider an adhesive caulking compound. About 3 bucks a small squeezable tube. Just apply it by squeezing directly from the tube. then use one nice clean swipe with your finger to smooth it and then let it set. It's a beautiful thing.
Hey thx, great ideas, didn't know about adhesive caulking.... many thanks!
 
It looks like you have an " upper " deck to redo as do I. Is your deck over a part of the house?

Ours is over the sun room and so there are some things to consider. First off my deck is falling apart. a black bear climbed up the tree and ripped apart the railing- huge gaping hole now by the bird feeder you could walk right off--

There is a paper you get from HD that you lay down first waterproofing<-- Important if you have tough winters as we do in Ct.

You will need a dumpster and those are hard to get. We had to wait a week. Also the trees have to fill in to avoid preying eyes.

Next all these wood pillars yours are rather simple looking, ours have a lot of detail-- who is going to cut those? You need a guy.

The floor laying is rather simple you have beams that run across underneath and a small amount of space to put the nail but once you get one in the rest can cluster.

It is the side railings though and the security and strength of the whole affair and the need to be up on a ladder -- it is for those reasons I suggest you hire someone. If you are just doing the floor with a stain you can probably wing it but I am replacing w/ all new wood because of severe warping. Enough stubbed toes!

Work begins this next week!
 
When I was young I had a time share in Fire Island with an Upper Deck. We used to sit out at night flying on ecstasy talking and laughing until the next morning we called ourselves " The Upper Deck Heroes "

I miss those days.
 
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