What I did at my house today...

[phil]

Vala the windows are looking great. I love the glass on the bathroom window and the stained glass. the frames look great too. Lots of work !

[phil]

Willa the scraping is coming along nicely. Im wondering if you wet the wood and let it dry , might it pop the floral pattern more? if it is embossed , that would crush the fibers and if you wet it it might puff them up again, or maybe that's already happened years ago. It will be interesting to see if you can see the patterns when painted, neat feature.
The shingles on my house show the sawn patterns and it looks nice but like similarly, you can only notice it in certain light. near dawn and dusk.

I'd say the point of scraping is because you dont; want your new paint to fail because of the underneath paint continuing to lift and if it is sheltered and not all cracked up it might be ok.
the tight bond 3 sounds like a good choice two part epoxy is waterproof but the issue is that it is not porous or breathable so its possible to create issues where the water can't get back out of wood if you cover a lot, but it also would work for small pieces.

while wood is normally clamped when gluing , if you knock a chunk loose and if you can grab the bit and glue it back straight away while it still fits perfectly you might be successful just pressing it tight and taping it in place while the glue sets up, as long as there is no gap.

i've been experimenting mixing wood dust into epoxy. I combine the dust with the two parts, then mix them well before use. the fibers help it fill gaps and not run out so easy. Maybe see what others think. Epoxy has a working time, then it sets by chemical reaction and that is heat dependant. it might not set properly under a certain temperature so if you use any epoxy have a look at what the minimum temp for it to set is. also some set quickly and others take as long as overnight. so the type of epoxy and the temp both play into the set time. If you do use a type of epoxy pay attention to the temp tha ti will set at because you can get into issues if it is too cold for some things to set. Its because the reaction that takes place needs a certain minimum temperature and there are different types of epoxy. the tightbond might not have that issue but I'd check the datasheet before you go just in case.
im not sure about with wood but I know with metal, I never paint it cold because if you do sometimes it looks fine, then flakes off. I guess there are optimum temperatures for house paint too and others might know more about that. with metal Ill often warm it and doing that does drive moisture out even if its a piece of steel. your temp is probably different but its fall here and I do see dew in the mornings and moisture trapped under paint could be an issue if you paint when the surface moisture content is high. It can't be too dry anyway.

when i did my roof I added a metal 2" drip flashing and it looks like you have something similar. I thought of it as a bit of a trade off because metal strips aren't really original but they do help the water not run down the fascia board.
Your roof would be a steep one to do so luckily it looks like it's in nice shape.

[Vala]

Vala the windows are looking great. I love the glass on the bathroom window and the stained glass. the frames look great too. Lots of work !

Thank you very much!

[Gothichome]

Willa, what a great discovery in the embossed shakes. Being soft I would expect them to be cedar, that would also explain the relatively great condition they are in. To make the shakes I can invision a die cutting process using an emboss pattern incorporated into the die. It would seem, who ever spec’d your home had the means to build it to the latest home style of the time. I see two tones of okra, or maybe two levels of fade of the same colour. Also I see hints of blue and maybe red, hard to tell from the pics, what have you noticed up front and close.
My thoughts on paint prep would be a heavy application of blot, it just might bring some definition back to the pressed detail. Then paint with a high quality primer and final colour.
I wouldn’t sweat the details of removing every spec of paint, if it stuck this long it’s not going to come off in the future. I’m not too sure of sanding the shakes either. If you start making one smooth you will have to all or it’ll show, maybe Gibson,Casey, or one of the other pro’s can chime in on that. Vala and a few others who have taken on extensive exterior paint removal will be a valuable source of info as well.

[Willa]

I see two tones of okra, or maybe two levels of fade of the same colour. Also I see hints of blue and maybe red, hard to tell from the pics, what have you noticed up front and close.
My thoughts on paint prep would be a heavy application of blot, it just might bring some definition back to the pressed detail. Then paint with a high quality primer and final colour.
I wouldn’t sweat the details of removing every spec of paint, if it stuck this long it’s not going to come off in the future. I’m not too sure of sanding the shakes either. If you start making one smooth you will have to all or it’ll show, maybe Gibson,Casey, or one of the other pro’s can chime in on that. Vala and a few others who have taken on extensive exterior paint removal will be a valuable source of info as well.

Up close, the color differences are less visible but they do show up in photos. There is definitely some old or very old ochre paint (okra is a vegetable with limited appeal), and it seems that the trim boards were a very dark black-green/ The pics suggest that the center of the medium corbels may have been red, or a rusty red.

I have been reading about surface preparation of old weathered wood, from various sources.

https://www.duluxtradepaintexpert.co.uk/editorial/10-solutions-for-damaged-exterior-wood

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/pro-confides-his-best-tips-painting-exteriors

The TOH articles suggests painting exposed wood with a paintable wood preservative first - which I have never read before. The advice is almost universal about having to sand off silvered wood to expose fresh wood below, or the paint won't adhere properly. BUT - If I heavily sand the embossed shakes the pattern will disappear ? There is also a LOT of recessed detail that is silvered and with loose paint. I guess all I can do is hope for the best and do as many steps as I can - as are reasonable without disassembling the facade - to prep the surfaces properly.

I don't want to strip off ALL the paint. It is the really loose paint which needs to get gone. I have also seen some houses of a similar age that had a careful fancy paint job - but the surface below was lumpy with old paint which is very visible on a sunny day. My approach to anything is typically moderate. If I can see how lumpy and checked it is from street level - and this can be stripped off, sanded and properly prepped - then I will do that. Complex surfaces where the paint is well adhered will get left alone after a light sanding, and scrubbing if needed.

I could make myself nuts with trying to remove every speck of paint, getting dental tools to pick at tiny recesses, etc. but am trying to avoid that kind of approach.

I think I posted this photo before. I found it on a local FB about the history of this area. This was probably the last time when the house had a fancy multi color paint scheme - and may have actually been the ORIGINAL paint ! The paint I am taking off is not layers and layers. There seems to have been a great deal of paint loss and weathering from when it was painted in the yellow brick color - and as the person undoing the paint I can certainly understand why this house wasn't painted very much. Which makes me think I better do it right...

Maybe a seaparate thread about exterior prepping old surfaces should get started ? Mods ?

1940's.jpg (62.47 KiB) Viewed 1116 times

[Manalto]

Peg, Jack and Bud. But who's the fourth?

[Willa]

Peg, Jack and Bud. But who's the fourth?

I believe that is David, grandchild of Peg.

[Manalto]

Big tree in the front for shady summers!

[phil]

I think you might need to do some high build sandable primer and sand it after application to hide the "step" between the paint that remains and the surface that is completely stripped or otherwise , Yea it'll telegraph through the final paint.

You could ask others what paints to use.

yes the cedar shingles are stamped with a die to recieve that pattern. now you can forget about it if you want to but if you were to sand a little and then wet it, this might release some of the fibers and then since you sanded it flat and then wet it, the pattern would protrude rather than being inset, but might be visible depending how thick the paint is. or maybe it won't move or maybe it won't be enough of a protrusion to not be hidden by paint thickness. whether - or how much those crushed fragments could return after so long would be purely an experiment.
another idea might be to use thick viscosity paint and by hand, paint in the detail of the stamp and then maybe it would show through. You aren't going to re-stamp the shingles or replace them so the other option is to forget that detail.
I've got a printing press from the early days that is hand fed and treadle driven. You can borrow it if you like but it weighs about as much as a couple of cars.. making the dies is expensive or time consuming, there are places that do that. Once set up you'd treadle it and since the machine is hand fed it is able to print on (or in this case emboss) on odd things that could not be fed through any modern type of printing press. If you emboss paper you need to make a male and female die to do this but the shingles could be done with only one die. Ive used machines like that not only to emboss but to print on weird stuff, like wedding napkins or match books or on the front of an already printed magazine.
the reason the machine is so heavy is because it needs to withstand a huge amount of pressure when it is under impression. John boy Walton had one too..
there aren;t a lot of them around but these machines were used for centuries and some are still in use. this is an example of something special it can do. other examples might be things like making tin signs in relief, like licence plates , or stamping leather. or die cutting certain shapes. for example I could make dies to cut out and little boxes and to make score lines for folding and perforations.
Ive personally seen two people crush fingers in these machines, as you treadle with your right foot you use your right hand to put stuff in and your left hand to take the old one out. what happens is if people loose their rythm it is possible to put your hand in when it goes under impression and so many fingers have been lost.
they are lovely machines though. the castings are ornate and it has a beautiful flywheel. the ones we used were converted to motor driven which makes them more dangerous since the treadling helps your body keep everything in time.. ok Im way off topic now ;;-)

[Lily left the valley]

We had a cold spell a few days ago which snapped back a memory that last fall I forgot to vinegar soak our radiator air release vents.

Last winter I knew at least the library vent might need minding because that rad started being too cool and it was angled right. I put it off for no good reason at all, and now after a nice vinegar bath, it works just fine again. (Yes I am an idiot, and next time I won't wait to do such a basic check.)

Now they're all done, and I'm glad I did because it turned out the one in our bedroom had developed a hairline crack along the side of the chamber. This explained why later in the winter our bedroom started to feel like a sauna even though I had the vent near to closed.

So I'll be heading to the plumbing and electrical place tomorrow.