Protection

Grandpa Bob, I've been a professional painter-designer for 7 years and I always use Benjamin Moore products. They have transparent stain in 4 colors and semi-transparent in 75 colors...you can still see the grain with these. I looked up a location nearby for ya. Hirshfield's AKA 22 13050 Riverdale Dr. 763.427-6474 Hope this works

Sorry I can't help you much, Grandpa Bob. We always used Thompson's on our deck. You could try asking the nice folks at Menards or Lowes for their opinion. That's what we always do when we are stuck.

Couple questions for ya, The thompsons you were using is it called Water Seal or Wood Protector....there is a BIG difference, being that The wood protector locks the grain of the wood and has to be sanded first before any stain can be put on, or the stain will just sit on the top of the wood and not penetrate which will peel in about a year. The second is what is the deck built from, Cedar, Spruce, Pressure treat.etc.. If it is already a cedar wood then I would just lighty sand it to open the grain of the wood again then apply a clear sealer or Thompson wood toner, which adds a nice new look to cedar. If it is made from any other type of wood other than cedar, you can take a pressure washer to it and blast all the old color and sealer off, plus this opens the grain of the wood, I would do this and leave it dry for about 3 days and stay off the deck to avoid tramping the grain back down. Then look for a stain made by sikens you should be able to find this at lowes or home depot, it usually is expensive and comes a lot of the time in 2 seperate application, a stain and a sealer, you apply the stain first then the sealer afterwards and this will last for years to come....this is the product you will see used in resorts and so on, contractors use this product all the time and it comes in hundreds of colors. Check http://www.sikkens.com for more info on there products.

Kicking myself right now, 3 years ago I treated a deck and I can't for the life of me remember the brand name. I know I got it at Lowes and it worked really well. Didn't spray it but it looked just like real cedar even though the deck was cheapo pine. Thought I might still have the can in the garage but I checked and didn't see it. Next break I'll pop over to Lowe's web site I may recognize the can if I saw it.