We have a cabin that has been in our family now for 30 years and we decided to stain it a couple of years ago. Not knowing what my grandfather had used prior we just used a oil based stain. Now the problem is that the stain starts to bubble in the sun as it seems the wood cannot breath (or so I've been told).

Further investigation into what my grandfather had used it seems that it was a linseed oil. Now that we think we know what was used we thought maybe removing the stain that was applied and starting over might be the best approach but we would like to know that best method for trying to remove it as I have try sanding it and pressure washing it but neither seemed to work so far. Is there a chemical that would work better? Any suggestions out there? Thanks

Your in for a very difficult project. Removing any kind of stain is difficult at best. With a log style home its going to be even harder.

I would suggest if this is the outside of the home were talking about. Use soda blasting or corncob blasting to clean the logs and prep them properly for new oil or stains.

It can be done on inside but a lot of prep would need to occur as the cleaning process is noisy and quite dusty.

Cob blasting or shell blasting uses a high pressure sand blasting type of system. The hardness of the material they use is such that no damage occurs to the wood but it will remove the surface coating of the logs. The by product is bio degradable so the material can be raked up and thrown away. Soda blasting is also very good, but requires that the logs be cleaned with water once done to remove the bakeing soda residue left on the logs once done. For your home I would suggest corn cob or walnut shells to clean the logs off.

Check the web for companies that do this type of work. It will clean the logs down to the origional color without doing any damage to the wood itself. There are several companies all over the U.S. that do this type of work.

Any other method of stain removal is way to time consuming and costly and in most cases will not work.

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soda blasting

Thanks for the reply. I am up in canada and our cabin is 3 hours from any city so I'm not sure if this is a option unless of course we could do it ourselves?

There are many companies that do this work and have no issue doing the traveling. I would suggest using the cob blasting as its bio degradable and can be raked into the soil where its not picked up. If you go to the many web sites that offer this service you will find lots of information on how this is done. Not a do it yourself project.