Splicing In The Dark

I know of no carpenter that enjoys spicing. Let alone when it's in the dark. On the top of a ladder.

 A friend had a sash window where the bottom had rotted out of the top frame. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done the job if he wasn't a friend as it was very awkward without a 100% chance of it working. The timing was down to me, as it was the only time we could both fit it in.

 I machined the piece in advance, ready to fit. I broke the old piece away and cleaned up all the tenons. I then marked the new piece up, halving joints on either ends with mortices to join in the mullions in the middle. I was a fiddly job at the top of a ladder. 

 I then glued and screwed the piece in a place and used linseed putty to seal the glass. My putty skills are far from the best but it's so infrequent that I use it now, it will look fine when painted though. 

The window should last a few more years now, I've told him it's essential that he paints on to the glass when he paints the window as this is the only way you properly seal a window with putty.

Left home at 7 at night and got back in around 12 - not everyones working day!

Oak Frame Repair

A good few days work on this old oak frame repair, not very easy going as a lot of hand work to get it back to somewhere I could work from.

A large crack that had started to rot due to it being filled with concrete and the wood not being able to breath

Taking the bad wood back to good. I decided that as the upright would need two splices as well it was best to replace it at the same time.

Splicing in the top piece

Some of the bottom section chiselled out - this took a lot of work!

The completed repair

The bottom joint.
 I made the pegs on site as well.

A picture showing how heavily scribed the bottom piece is - I made a template first and then it fitted pretty easily (well for oak anyway)

The repair fits in nicely as the rest of the frame has had work done to it in the past. Once this greys with age you won't be able to tell when this repair was done.

Picture showing the whole frame

The customer seemed really please with the job and I've another repair to do on the frame lower down once the scaffold is dropped.

Rotten Roof Repairs

A bee's nest behind a bit of rotten fascia board is what started a larger-than-we-thought-job this week. The painters had been prepping some of fascia when they noticed how rotten a section of it was under a chimney. I went up, stripped off some of the slates and investigated.

Rotten fascia was hiding some deeper problems

The fascia and soffit were both weak with wet rot but as I took back the slates I could see that the wall plate and bottom end of the rafters were rotten as well. 

Not trying to sell a tool but the Fein Multimaster is amazing for this type of work

So I then started quite a major repair for this little bit of the roof. Firstly I removed all the rotten wood, cutting sections out. When I cut the fascia out I used the Fein Multimaster to cut it on a 45 degree angle so I could easily fix a new piece back in, This tool is incredible for doing this, it would be a lot harder by hand and cause more disruption to the roof.

some rooten timber around this chimney

I started by adding in a section of wall plate. I used oak as that is what the original was, I used a good sized half lap joint to make sure the two pieces were fixed together and bedded it on a layer of mortar. I then cut a rafter end with birds mouth and added it into the roof. I made sure it was long enough to sit on the first purlin up in the roof so it would be structural rather and fixed to another rafter and also to carry the soffit and fascia when I add that later. I decided to double this rafter up around the chimney as it will make the lead work easier at a later date.

New rafter added and a new section of wall plate half lapped in place

With all the structural work done I cut a new bit of soffit and fascia to fit. When adding wood like this it's essential that they are added at an angle so if/when  the wood shrinks it doesn't leave a big gap. I replaced more fascia that I had originally though as it was rotten quite far up. I then treated all the wood before I covered it back over.

The finished repair, ready for a bit of paint

Quite pleased with the repair but it took a lot of time and it's never fun playing with rotten timber!