Sorry you're having these difficulties!! Yep...roller-lines AREN'T caused by the paint itself!! 99.5% of the time, it's purely "Painter error"! Causes: * Poor technique/equipment... * Overworking the primer & paint... * Pushing coats too thin. "Builders' painters" are used (USUALLY) solely for speed...NOT quality. Many couldn't produce a flawless wall if they were offered a new Ferrari! I'm not a pro painter, but work at an upscale Paint/Hdwr. store. The walls I've done at home are flawless. * I use only the best Roller-covers (Purdy White-Doves or Wooster Pro-Doozs). * Nice stiff-necked roller-frames ) Wooster green-handled Sherlock GT's, with the GT Pole. * Paints: I'm spoiled here! I tint my own C2, ACE-Royal, or Ralph-Lauren, with C2-One primer as my FAVE! * I've even used an FPE color. >>> I'm very careful with technique & prep! * On cleaned/primed walls, I paint a 2.5' wide column, using 4 roller-loads per 8' height. * After doing these 4 vertical "blocks", I bring my unloaded roller to the top of this column & do 3 REAL LIGHT downward "sweeps"...ceiling-to-floor-motion. * This "lays-off" the paint so all stipple is leaning the same direction, and thin-spots/roller-turns are smoothed out. * Repeat this "column-work" around the room. * Keeping your column width to ~ 2.5' ensures you're getting enough paint on the wall!! * Seriously...I cannot find a roller-line or sheen-variation in my jobs at home! Faron

The cuts are nice and straight ... he used some sort of track/stop to run the saw along. We did have him sand yesterday (with the thought that if that doesn't work, anything else we'd do would be more drastic and the sanding wouldn't matter). It was pouring when we got home so I have to go outside now and see how much it helped. That actually isn't anchorseal, it's all splinters and chew marks ... it looks darker because those are the boards he put down last fall, so they have faded, and the chew stuff exposed the new wood. The screws are a little shiny, but they are countersunk a bit, so as long as you're not looking straight down on them (like I am here), it's really not too obvious ... plus I thought they'd go better when the deck is gray (and if I stain the stain will fill the little sink holes and obscure them a bit). Anyway, I'll post an update tonight with some new pictures ... I know he did go get "another" new blade (with 60 teeth) after we yelled at him, so perhaps the few remaining boards to be cut will be better. Do circular saw blades really run "backwards"? That's what he said ... Thanks for all the support guys! It probably wasn't as bad as I made it out to be but I was REALLY upset when I first saw it (after all, all the other cuts he made on the deck were perfectly smooth). Thanks again, Birgit

Its either that or play the lottery. Since I am a glutton for punishment... Nah I love it! I am going to post a customer testimonial here that made my day and makes it all worthwhile. I hope she doesn't mind. ------------------------------------------------------ From my Restore-A-Deck message board: Hi! I have to report fantastic results using your product on our Ipe deck. We followed the directions exactly and the deck looks SO GOOD. I am so shocked ... your product went above and beyond our expectations. When we built the deck 2 years ago it was so nice and 2 years later we figured that we would never be able to get back that "like new" look. For those of you ready to use this product, follow the directions and we even learned a few things. Two people is better. We mixed up step 1 in a 5 gallon bucket so we always had plenty of cleaner when our bug sprayers were running low. We each had a 3 gal. sprayer and I even had a spare sprayer in the event a sprayer went down (they always seem to clog when you don't want them to). When my husband was rinsing after the Cleaner I went ahead and got a 5 gallon bucket ready with Brightener solution. I cleaned my 3 gallon sprayer out really good and loaded up with Step 2 Brightener and used my spare 3 gallon sprayer for Brightener. When hubby was done rinsing we both could go right into Step 2. We did 90% of the deck in step 1 and then went over it with the Brightener. Wow, the stuff is great. What we did wrong was NOT doing the ENTIRE deck with Cleaner. This didn't screw anything up other than the fact when I was applying Cleaner to the stairs and outside spindles, I was getting cleaner on the freshly rinsed deck that already had steps 1 and 2. We just ended up making more work for ourselves because we had to go over parts of the decking a couple of times. So clean your entire deck, rinse, rinse and rinse again. We used a pressure washer. I probably would be out of water if I were using a hose. The pressure washer is more economical to use. We did use the pressure washer after apply the Brightener and it worked out great. We also did this on a cloudy day. Today was PERFECT. You don't want to do this in the sun because you need to keep Step 1 wet with solution. Let's see what else, well, once we have a nice dry deck then we will apply a sealer. What a lot of work; however the results were WORTH IT!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tammy ------------------------------------------------------- Tammy, you are very welcome! If you happen to read this, verify that this is your post so I don't get hate mail for making fake posts LOL

jerseyjoe, I just recently put in an IPE deck and am all but finished with the build (little trim work to do on a hip wall/planter) and am getting ready to put some TWP #516 on it....I used the clips and am satisfied with them....not ecstatic about them....saw alot more movement on the lower deck that is close to the ground...like most said hear...if your a perfectionist like I tend to be...go with countersink, face screw and plug. Somerville's IPE is crap!!...I bought a few boards there and had to take them back...warped in a few days....I originally ordered mine main lot from Advantage Lumber in NY....it was a hassle to get it delivered....go with George at East Teak as others have said....and when you run out at the end of your project you can get some good stuff at Fox Lumber in Clinton, NJ just next to the Agway/Weichert Realtor. MAybe we can work something out this weekend if you really want to see an IPE deck (unfinished). I am just south of the Califon area