Have you ever refinished a deck railing?

I'm looking for advice today.

My project for the next few weeks is to refinish the railing to our deck. In past years, we've sanded and scraped flaking paint on the railing and repainted over it. Living where it's so wet most of the year, paint doesn't hold up well for us. 

So, we're going to sand all of the paint off the horizontal surfaces of the railings and use outdoor stain and seal instead of paint. For me, this means I have to sand off every bit of paint, years and years of layers of paint from the top rail and bottom rail. I'll use a grey solid stain (most coverage for a stain) on horizontal surfaces. The stain will need refreshing every year. However, reapplying stain is a lot easier than sanding/scraping and repainting.

Being vertical so water sheds easily, the balusters and support posts for the railing seem to hold the paint well. So, I'll paint all of the vertical surfaces, instead of stripping and staining those parts. I'll use a black paint on vertical surfaces. I'll need to repaint these parts every 5 years or so.

For this project I bought a disk sander designed for stripping paint. It works pretty well, but this is still an involved process. I've worked 2 days so far and have removed the paint from the majority of about half of the top railing. I should have the majority of the entire top rail done by the end of the weekend. I'll still need to go in with scrapers and sand paper to get the bits that are close to the upright posts where the sander couldn't reach. I'll also need to sand and scrape the bottom rail by hand, as the balusters are too close together for the sander.

My questions -- has anybody here ever refinished a deck railing? Have you stripped outdoor paint from wood surfaces? If so, did you sand it off or use chemicals? Do you have any tips for scraping/sanding paint in tight areas? Have you used any special tools for sanding or scraping? Thank you for any advice you can offer.

Knockoff of Kris's Blue Jean Button Waistband Adjuster

old button to the right, new button to the left

A while ago Kris mentioned buying a no-sew jean button pin that could be used to cinch in the waist on a pair of jeans. The way these work is you push the pin part attached to the button through the denim waistband an inch or so over from the original button on a pair of jeans. The pin is secured by a flat metal disk on the inside of the waistband. Then use this as the final button for securing the waist. Viola, a pair of jeans at least a size smaller in the waist.

If you tend toward a curvier figure, a button pin will hold the waist tighter while still being roomy enough in the hips and seat. A button pin is also helpful for someone in the process of shedding excess weight, but not at a final weight. The old jeans are too large, but one might be reluctant to buy smaller ones just yet. A button pin doesn't do anything for the extra fabric in the hips and seat, but it does keep your pants from falling off constantly. Of course, one could also just wear a belt.

This past year, between thyroid malfunctions and reduced ability to eat at times from dental issues, I lost weight. My thyroid is returning to normal, and I'm done with dental procedures for the time being, so I've been able to regain a couple of pounds. Yet my work jeans are still so big that they look sloppy. I'm constantly hiking them back up to my waist.

Being an impatient type, I decided to do something about it right here and now. I couldn't stand to have the low-crotch look another day, and I was too impatient to wait for an Amazon package with one of those jean button pins. I also didn't want to spend money on work jeans. So I decided to just sew an extra button on the waistband. I looked through my button box and found a plain looking button that would fit through the buttonhole while not slipping out easily. I sewed it on a little over an inch from the original button. I won't take the factory button off as I could very well return to my previous weight and need that extra room.

The extra button worked great. My pants actually stay up while I'm working. I'm now wishing I'd done this a whole lot sooner.

I'm sharing this today because I think many of us have weight that fluctuates enough to cause clothes to not fit right, and we'd rather not buy all new wardrobes with each fluctuation.