We have an exotic hardwood deck. Current stain looks pretty bad, wanted to strip and apply a different brand stain. Is the Defy Exterior Wood Stripper good for this type of wood (canberra) or would something else work better to strip it? Thanks.

Do you know what brand name the pervious stain was? The Defy Stripper is a very good product but effectiveness of deck strippers are determined by the previous coating(s) not the type of wood.

Used Sikkens on it up to this point. Cetol DEK, I believe. I have three decks, one is basically on the ground, one is maybe 2 feet off the ground and the third is 3 to 4 feet off the ground. The CETOL looked the worst on the two lowest decks, but doesn't look that great on the top deck either.

Sikkens is not a very easy stain to remove. Depending on the amount of coats, you may need to strip a couple of times. The Cetol is actually the hardest to strip since it has a tendency to film form leaving a "shiny" varnish type finish. These are the most difficult types of finishes to deal with. I would suggest stripping a couple of times to get off as much as possible, then if needed sand off the rest.

thanks for the response. Another question...assuming that I am successful in getting the sikkens off the deck (think I'm almost there) which coating would you recommend for recoating it with? I'm looking for something in a mahogany finish, similar to the upper deck. Keep in mind that the deck is only a few feet off the ground, is enclosed on three of four sides, is Brazilian hardwood. I attached a couple of pictures. I'm looking at re-finishing the middle deck. Thanks.

I think that Armstrong Clark in Rustic Brown would be a good choice for stain and color. Here is a picture below.