You are going to have to sand the deck down. I would stay away from stripping and neutralizing as everyone always recommends on this forum. I would rent a floor buffer from home depot for $40/day and buy a few white buffing pads and some circular screens. 80 grit should work well. Attach the white pads to the drive block on the buffer, which acts as a shock absorber for the screen to contour over the boards. I would screen the entire surface of the deck, sort of abrade the old finish off. You won't have to worry about squaring off the edges screening, even if you used a hard disc, it would still take a lot of sanding to knock those edges off. Then I would use an orbital palm sander and blast each board. The screening process will take a lot of labor off your project, but ultimately, you have a pain in the butt job. The real problem is the benches, posts, railings and pergola, but if you want it to look good, might as well do it right. You're going to have to sand everything, period. All in all, everyone has their own recommendations for sealers and whatnot, I only use one product for Ipe, which is called Rubio Monocoat. It's expensive, and just as much as a pain to apply as sanding down your deck. But trust me it's worth it. I have no idea how to post pictures on here but every deck I've done looks like furniture. In fact, after you're done, you'll have to upgrade your house. Check the stuff out. You have to apply a water based sunprimer (pigmented, uv inhibitor) first, by hand, wipe on, immediately wipe off, application process, each individual board. Allow to dry, then you buff on a 2-component decking oil. Then you have to buff it off. Here's the tricky part, you have to work in sections with the oil, because you have a 3-15 minute window to apply the oil and then remove the excess. If someone could please explain to me how to upload pictures on this thing, I would be happy to show you the difference between a regular deck, a good professional deck and then my decks. Again, there is no miracle end all, maintenance free Ipe deck. You will still need to maintain this deck. Just like you do a pool or landscape vegetation. Dependent upon the sun you get, you'll need to apply a refresh coat (aerosol spray for vertical surfaces and buff on horizontally) every 3-6 months. This requires work, and money. I won't tell you what I charge to do the work per square foot, but I will tell you that it is expensive and does require recurring maintenance. But besides looking amazing, the great thing about this is it is completely repairable. Dogs, furniture, any sort of scratch or gouge can be fixed.

Dont wait for anything but good weather to put the finish on an outdoor project. Finish will not help the normal factory pannel fence job last any longer than it would with out it because the stringers are not weather resistent lumber. Quality outdoor finish has uv,water,and mildew protection provided. Using them is a one step deal. I use TWP 100 series. www.wooddefender.com and www.woodrich-brand.com sell quality outdoor finish as well. If you are using factory pannels and want to try to extend the life,use one of the above and soak the area where the stringers are in contact with the pickets...a couple of times... then place the finish on the whole pannel. JonMon www.deckmastersllc.com

18 years old,that project was done with CCA mateial. Buy now and you will get acq material the life of said is no place near the cca stuff, in fact no one has any idea on what the life span of even .40 acq will be. I do know when I cut into acq the center is still yellow the preasure treatment looks like spray paint. CCA never did this. Composite material on the hype scale is hmmmmm around 10 points with #1 being no hype at all. Ipe is 0 hype or #1 on the hype scale. Will a high $ ipe deck last 20 years with a acq.40 frame under it ? Now that is a hype question. It has nothing to do with ipe, everything to do with the green mafia pushing big money into an area they knew nothing about. Then drifing on over to the wine/pasta bar after calling jane fonda on the cell in Carmel and asking how the grilled shirmp was. I have a Wallet over here with a 20 year old pt cca project fairly big one,same kinda thing splits,splenters, but hey!! the thing still stands and dont look all that bad in a realative sort of way. I did some replacement,very cool ipe benches with allum balusters, couple of coats of twp finish,braced up the tiled bar,things like that. Tina is good for another 20 with some upkeep and furture replacement of the decking but I cant see any problem with the frame. J

O---kay--I did some more research! It took quite awhile! Since there is no way to know the *vocabulary* here as a novice, I eventually decided that TWP may not be 'Thompson's Water Proofing' since it seems to be thought of so highly, on this forum. I'm glad I *held in there* and didn't run out and purchase the 'Thompson products'! I found out that it actually is a product referred to as a 'Total Wood Preservative', better known as TWP! Here's the link, below, for the next new guy or gal trying to figure out things here! ;o) So, is it as well thought of as I've determined it to be here, after reading back 40 some pages? :o) Here is a link that might be useful: TWP--explained