Ask a Building Trades Professional

[CavLancer]

Wouldn't using pressure treated near a garden put chemicals into the soil which could harm the plants and which you might not want to eat?

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Question...

A Philippine made spray furniture polish got applied to my bar which is mahogany wood. As a result its shiny but also perpetually sticky. How to get it off? Tried white vinegar with no result. I figure reducer would harm the varnish. One possibility is to give it a light sanding and varnish again, it has no stain. Problem with that is, its a bar. We are only closed Monday and Tuesday. The local varnishes take a considerable time to dry.

I could rope off the bar to prevent use Wednesday and Thursday, people tent to avoid the sticky anyway.

Any product I should look for to refinish the bar quickly? Alternately anything i should try to remove the offending spray stuff?

 

[Cutlass]

Warpus, I'm surprised you see rabbit in an yard that has dog. But if you say so.


As to the PT stuff for a garden, I don't think so. The current generation of the stuff is supposed to be stable for a long time.

For the bar, without knowing for sure what the chemicals are, there's some guesswork involved. Something like linseed oil can leave a sticky residue if it's not put on very thinly and rubbed out smooth. If it's something like that, a solvent like paint thinner (mineral spirits) or turpentine might take it off. If you have any of that, you could try it in the most out of the way part of the bar that has the problem, and see if it solves it for you. If it does, use it on the rest of the area. Those shouldn't dissolve a varnish.

Not knowing what products are available to you, it's hard for me to recommend stuff. But polyurethane will dry to the point of use overnight, if it's available.

RT knows wood finishing much more than I do, next time he checks in he may be able to give you a better answer.

 

[CavLancer]

Thank you Cutlass. I don't know what's in the stuff either and I tossed it out without thinking. I'll try the thinner and test as you suggest. The poly is a good idea, are there any downsides vs varnish?

Regarding the PT, used to be it had cuprinol (sp) and when working with the stuff one had to wear gloves. The PT was good for thirty years or some such but any cut ends also had to get some sort of protectant applied. I always tried to put cut ends out of the ground wherever possible, figure they were not as good. Certainly the ends I coated were not treated under pressure.

Wish I had the experience I now have with concrete and bar, I'd have always used it.

 

[Cutlass]

A downside to poly is that it can be difficult to get a really smooth finish without brush marks or bubbles. It can be done, but it's not the easiest thing in the world. Or you can reuse the varnish that you have, but as you say, it may take a long time to dry, and you haven't got the time. As it's a bar, I'm assuming it gets wet on a regular basis. The poly does offer good protection for the wood in that case. I was thinking later last night, if that polish was any form of a vegetable oil base, such things need to be applied very thinly. That is, use a small amount and a clean rag and wipe it over as large of an area that you can before adding more polish.


Current generations of PT wood have a different preservative than earlier generations. So the toxicity is not the same. Landscape borderings is a common use of it. So I think it's safe.

 

[CavLancer]

Well, might just rethink this. So is quick dry varnish basically poly then? I'm thinking of closing off the bar and using the best varnish I can find. That way even though I might have a longer drying time I won't have to look at the brush strokes long term.

Thanks Cutlass, for giving all this good info!

 

[Cutlass]

I've seen some people use poly and varnish interchangeably. They aren't specifically the same chemical, but they serve pretty close to the same purpose. Poly is kind of a subset of the term varnish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varnish#Polyurethane

As to the brush strokes, that'll be dependent on skill and application method. It's not something you will always get.

 

[warpus]

Warpus, I'm surprised you see rabbit in an yard that has dog. But if you say so.

Does that not happen where you live? My sister has rabbits in hers from time to time too. Rabbits are stupid, they just sit there, and when the dog gets too close, they run away. They seem to assume that they can outrun anything.. Unfortunately they aren't very bright, and my sister's dog seems to be a good hunter, he was able to fool the rabbit into running into a corner, after which he ripped it to shreds. This happened a couple years ago, and hasn't happened since, even though the rabbits always come back. So I guess the rabbits are mostly right - they can probably outrun any dog, in most situations. I would say there's probably a 10% chance or so, when I look out my office window, to see a rabbit smack in the middle of my back yard just chilling there.

That hasn't happened yet in my back yard (the dog actually catching the rabbit and killing it), there are enough escape exits possible under the fence in various parts of my back yard.. So the rabbits come and hang out, and when the dog is in the backyard at the same time, they only run away when it gets too close. My roommate also really doesn't want to deal with blood on his dog, vet visits, etc. so he sort of keeps an eye out for that, but is more concerned about skunks, as the rabbits seem to be indeed fast enough to 99.9% of the time get away from a dog when they want to.

 

[Cutlass]

Some animals will just shy away from entering a place that smells like dog. At least, they're supposed to.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, the rabbits around here are fearless, my parents, my sister, and my roommate have brought up that very point before. Maybe the rabbits have nowhere else to go for nicely growing grass or something, I dunno

Two years ago or so now I think, we found a little rabbit's nest in the middle of my backyard. The stupid rabbit decided that this was the best place for a bunch of tiny rabbit babies.... ... Got to it before the dog did, moved the rabbit nest close to the nearby school, it was found by elementary school kids in the morning, it was even on the news because the kids got a cool (and cute) learning experience, etc.

There's been more and more construction in this part of town lately, they're filling in all the gaps, streets are getting upgraded, city is growing, etc.. Soon there shouldn't be many nearby places for rabbits to go, other than back yards. So hopefully they'll migrate closer to the outskirts of the city, I guess for their own sake moreso than anything else.. but it would help with my garden as well, so.. I have a feeling there will be less of them this year, but we'll see

 

[Cutlass]

I don't think you'll ever see them leave. I was working recently in a town of over 65,000 people, and I saw rabbits all the time. I just thought they kept their distance from the smell of dog. They're perfectly fine living among people and away from any open land more than back yards.

 

[warpus]

Guess what happened last night, my rommate's dog got sprayed by a skunk in the back yard. We were ready this time with anti-skunk dog washing liquid stuff (it supposedly breaks down the enzyme that produces that smell and prevents it from clinging to stuff) and dog shampoo for right after, and 12 hours after ground zero 99% of the smell seems to be gone, even from the dog. And she got sprayed right in her face! So we'll see, but for only 12 hours after, that's pretty good I think. Last time it happened the smell was strong for days, and lingered around for many weeks.

Because of this we are convinced that the chickenwire around the bottom of the fence needs to be put up, which was sort of a half-plan, but now it's definitely at the forefront of all the plans. It's going to happen before the garden gets put up, in the next couple weeks.

So that should help with the yard and stop rabbits and skunks and other critters from getting in, and I'll only have to worry about birds I guess? Or Squirrels? Which in the case of the birds it seems there isn't much you can do anyway unless you go all out.

 

[Cutlass]

Depending on how much room you have under the fence, you could attach a narrow strip of some mesh to the bottom of it to go the ground. To keep animals out, might be better on the outer side if the fence, instead of the inner. If you're neighbors don't mind.

 

[CavLancer]

The thinner worked Cutlass, thanks! Didn't harm the varnish...

 

[Cutlass]

I wasn't sure, but thought that might be true. I bet the polish was a form of vegetable oil. And it may be true that it couldn't soak into the wood because of the varnish. But that type of oil has to go on extremely thin, in any case.

 

[warpus]

Depending on how much room you have under the fence, you could attach a narrow strip of some mesh to the bottom of it to go the ground. To keep animals out, might be better on the outer side if the fence, instead of the inner. If you're neighbors don't mind.

I think my neighbours would mind, we'll most probably have to attach it on our side. Why would it be better on the other side, though? And what do you recommend to attach the mesh to the ground? Do I dig a small trench and bury it in that?

 

[Cutlass]

I'll take a pic tomorrow of what I did if this explanation doesn't make sense to you....

In order to keep the dog from digging under the fence to out, I attached a mesh to the bottom of the fence and it goes down to the ground and then curves inward. So instead of being attached to the ground, the bottom part is laying on the ground inside the fence. That way the dog, from the inside, can't get her nose under the mesh and work past it. Also if she tries to dig right at the fence, the mesh would be in the way. As you're trying to stop something from getting in rather than getting out, I think it would work better on the outside.

I can't find quite the product I'd want to use online. Closest I can come up with is like this.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-1-2-in-x-2-ft-x-25-ft-Hardware-Cloth-308224HD/204331881

I'd like to cut that in half height wise. But can't find the product. So you attach the top of it near the bottom of your fence, and then fold it to lay the bottom part onto the yard. The grass will grow up right through it. If the animals are too persistent to be stopped by that, you could try putting the bottom in the ground by getting an edging shovel something like one of these

this can make a slot in the ground that you work the bottom of the fencing into, and then you attach the top to the wood fence.

Does that make sense?

 

[warpus]

Yeah that makes sense to me, thanks

This is what I'm working with, I should have linked that earlier. I got it really really cheap, but it's brand new. I don't think my roommate's dog does much digging, but other animals very well might. By the way, I own the 1st tool from the left in the pic you posted.

I think instead of doing the whole yard we might just start with more obvious entryways for skunks and see how well we do. I am also actually buying grass seeds soon, parts of the backyard need to be filled in with grass (and some soil) after last year's fence rebuild. This was on my list anyway so there's going to be soil and grass seed, so maybe it'll make sense to combine both projects

 

[Cutlass]

Rabbits or skunks may chew their way through vinyl fencing.

 

[warpus]

That shouldn't be a problem, the entire fence is made out of wood.

I have a feeling that no animals will really try to dig under anything or try to bite through anything once its put up either way, I don't think they specifically seek out this back yard but rather just follow the path of least resistance. So once enough holes are plugged, they would probably just end up hanging out somewhere else.

But I do not want to take any risks either way, so I want to do a good job putting this stuff up.

 

[Cutlass]

Spoiler raised garden bed :