Desperately trying to remove a solid acrylic stain

We moved into our house a little over two years ago. Early on, the deck started to peel. We tried to take care of it last Summer, going so far as to rent a pressure washer, but it didn't take up the paint/stain (even though if you got it by a flake you could pull it up with your hand).

Flash forward to this spring, the peeling had gotten so bad we decided to buy a pressure washer, and go at it with a chemical stain stripper (Behr). Now to be fair, we may have let the stripper dry too much in some spots since we were trying to do the whole deck at once (it's about 8' x 16'). However once again the pressure washer did nothing (unless it was on wood-destroy setting/distance). Here is the result of that day. http://i.imgur.com/okHybja.jpg

I had a little hand sander and tried using that to some success, so I decided to rent a deck sander and go to town on it. After going through 6 pads and a few hours of work, doing some scraping with a palette knife and once again pressure washing, here was the result.
http://i.imgur.com/x82zewX.jpg

I'm just about at my wits' end with this. Maybe it doesn't have to be completely stripped to bare wood, but there are still areas where in the hot sun it will start to peel up on the edges and I worry if I put down another layer of (solid acrylic) stain, it will just start peeling up again in a few months. With the headache this has been, I want something that will last years. If it was up to me, this would have never been done with a solid acrylic in the first place if they're this much of a pain to renew.

Has anyone dealt with this and do you have any advice? Honestly, going out with a paint scraper in direct sunlight seems to chip it off the best, but it takes forrr everrr. Can I just use a hand sander to round off the chippiest areas and paint the rest, or am I asking for trouble?

 

I'd call it good enough and apply a quality solid deck stain. It needs to be a deck stain and not a siding stain! If you want to use a semi-transparent stain you'd need to remove 95% of the existing stain/paint. IMO it wouldn't worth the effort. If you do go that route - use a paint remover, it's stronger than stain remover.

almost forgot welcome to the forums!

 

As you found out solid stain should not have been used on the decking.
Whole lot of work but a belt sander with a really course grit belt and a pair of knee pads would work.
Glad it's not my deck, I'd be removing all of it and replacing with composite.

 

I know Joe doesn't agree but I've painted a 100 decks or so with solid deck stain and had good lasting results. I'd use a chemical paint stripper before I'd do that much sanding.