Critter chewing on deck after staining (non-motorcycle)

[frankd]

I stained my deck and front porch, using Cabot solid color acrylic deck stain this summer. A couple of weeks after I did the front porch, I noticed that there were some chew marks under the top railing. I re-stained the damaged area, and everything has been fine, until today. I was bringing the newspaper in, and I saw a little more damage (chew marks). I called Cabot, but all they had to say was that there was a moldicide in the stain that should keep everything away because it tasted so bad. He could offer no ideas how to keep this from happening again. I'd guess it was done by a squirrel, but how can I keep it away?

 

HELP!!!

 

Frank

[Pam]

Is it chewing or flaking, can't tell from the pic.

[Flyinfool]

I agree, that looks more like flaking than chewing.

The area around that looks like it is not well adhered.

Try sanding that area down to bare wood and restaining.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

Hard to tell but yeah....it looks like flaking due to underlying moisture. I can also see what looks like random saw marks....unless you are saying that those gouges appeared overnight and you stained over them again. Can you take a picture of those chips at an angle? Up close with a flash? Even better, have someone hold a light to the side and then take a picture with no flash.

[bongobobny]

Replace your railings with plastic and then they will be maintenance free...

[Flyinfool]

If it is a critter, a pellet rifle works wonders.....

[Guest tx2sturgis]

Replace your railings with plastic and then they will be maintenance free...

 

For a few years, anyway.

 

[syscrusher]

I mean has somebody at Cabot's actually tasted it or what?

[frankd]

First off, I also wondered how they knew what the paint tasted like, it did sound like they had somebody try it.

 

Here's some pictures I took the first time it happened. Because the pictures are two dimensional, it's harder to see the depth of the damage, but believe me, it's not that the paint just didn't bond. The wood was cleaned just like the Cabot instructions said that it needed to be. One one of the attached pictures you can see some of the depth of the damage.

[Flyinfool]

Well then its back to plan B or is it BB.........

 

Even if they did make someone at the factory taste it things that taste good to us, some animals would not touch, and just look at some of the things that animals do eat.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

They feed large quantities to lab rats and if they die, it must be bad for humans too.

 

[Huggy]

Get/borrow/steal game camera set it up and see who's eating it. THEN find the remidy.

[spike13]

i know the hornets around here are eating my deck