Exposed wood

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by Lily left the valley »

We have a few windows that I know desperately need at least the bloop for now.

Does it matter if I do it in August versus September? We've been trying to decide whether to insulate the attic first or bloop since many of the windows have next to no paint left if at all, depending.

Oh, and related question...one of our kitchen windows has a horrid squeak. I'm wanting to take it apart soon to make sure it's the sash cord wheel which is my guess. If I'm right, what's best to use for that?
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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GibsonGM
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by GibsonGM »

Manalto - sorry to hear about that rubbery crap...I've seen it before. Usually "first generation" Duration by Sherwin Williams where I am...it was a failure. It did the rubber thing (failure to bond/cure properly), and did not adhere to the substrate, leaving a SPACE sometimes that water could sit in! You have to pick it off :( Another thing that causes that is using old paint, or paint that froze over winter (probably not that where you are, ha ha).

So yup, I'd DEFINITELY be all about heat-gunning that junk, and take 'em on down!! Really doesn't take that much longer once you get into it with sashes on the bench, and you'll love the results after you prime with oil and topcoat! Blop for now, it'll be ok.

Lily - Any time the windows are cool, dry and not in direct sun I'd think would be ok to blop. Given the conditions this year, getting them DRY might be harder to do! Evening is a nice time to coat things, in my experience, like 7pm...after work. Altho you will smell turpentine in the house overnight if you wait til then. AM is good, but have to be sure the dew has dried off your stuff first.

Shash pulley? How about powdered graphite lubricant?

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by Lily left the valley »

GibsonGM wrote:Lily - Any time the windows are cool, dry and not in direct sun I'd think would be ok to blop. Given the conditions this year, getting them DRY might be harder to do! Evening is a nice time to coat things, in my experience, like 7pm...after work. Altho you will smell turpentine in the house overnight if you wait til then. AM is good, but have to be sure the dew has dried off your stuff first.

Shash pulley? How about powdered graphite lubricant?
I'll look for some of that. Thank you for all the advice.
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

phil
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by phil »

Manalto wrote:I envy those of you who are able to restore the natural wood in your windows and trim; mine are too chewed up, punctured with curtain hardware, bruised from the lock and general abuse to be restored to wood. It's too bad, really. In one of the bedrooms, the trim is painted dark brown.


Im doing my living room floor now. I did the first (drum) sanding and now I'm painstatakingly fixing the blemishes. there are a lot of sap lines which are just natural to the wood and a lot of nails that were showing and needed to be driven in and filled. this ammounts to thousands of spots to fix. some of the wood near the nails is punky and stained blackish.

what I do is use a scribe tool. it's shaped like a chisel and the size of a pencil. I dig out any wood I need to , like the black parts around the nails and the sap lines and any other bad marks, any cracks bigger than a credit card can fit into.
It took time to get the putty color to match best I could, that's a lot of it. after that it's just a slow tedious process but when I'm done, if my putty matches, you won't really see all the nails and defects and the floor will look somewhat nice. there will still be marks and whatnot. some go deeper or cover more area so it's best not to repair some.. anyway you can do this to your window frames or other interior parts if you want the wood to show. its not expensive, just tedious work. I don't cover more wood than I need to to cover defects, I use masking tape to make sure I dont' get it all over.
a commercial floor finisher wouldn't' spend that sort of time and could go over a floor just putting the putty down with a little spatula and then do the final sanding. there are faster ways but the result is usually that you may get the putty to match but the dark spots will remain near the repaired nail holes.
Not many homes near me have outside facing parts unpainted. I want the look of the wood from inside but I think you might create some maintenence for yourself if you try to keep the exposed parts unpainted but they can definitely take a year or two with a good soaking ( or three) of blopentine.

there are other ways, maybe some want to see lots of bruises and nail damage and big cracks or even original patina. I find this harder as if you are sanding you are for the most part eating through that damaged wood or "patina"
so a lot depends on the time you want to put in and the result you are after.
Just dont' think you have to paint wood because it is riddled with nail holes. it can be hidden in the finishing steps. some floors like that strip flooring are face nailed and the installers are experts at hiding the nails.

even if you used brand new wood you'd have to do this. You wouldn't have black marks and nail holes perhaps but even the wood itself has flaws like the sap lines, even "perfect" boards have some imperfections. you can let them go or you can hide them. your choice.
If you did use new lumber you'd have a hard time finding wood as perfect as a lot of our floors so you'd likely have some knots and things.
If you are painting your only concern is making the surface flat so that is a lot faster. Like anything else you find faster ways if you do a lot of it.

Phil

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Manalto
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by Manalto »

Thanks for that guidance, Phil. It's worth considering, especially if the majority of the damage is high on the window trim. Of course, I have you to thank for creating more work for me if I go that route rather than simply painting. :naughty: Do you have a brand of putty that you prefer?

On my next visit, I'd like to get the (painted) wallpaper off the walls and expose the original plaster, which seems to be in good condition, with a minor crack here and there. It has a parchment color from age that's pleasing to me. Natural wood trim next to that would be really nice IMO, if not period correct, although the Craftsman emphasis on materials may make that choice permissible.

phil wrote:If you did use new lumber you'd have a hard time finding wood as perfect as a lot of our floors...


That's for sure. I haven't removed the wall-to-wall carpet over the wood floors because it serves as an in situ dropcloth (on top of which I always put another dropcloth; it's extra insurance against stains and other damage), but from what I can see from lifting the carpet - including heavy-traffic areas - the floors are excellent in quality and condition. A local carpenter from this town recently stated that the old houses in this neighborhood have exceptionally good floors. He also commented on the superior durability of the original wood used in the house - inside and out - compared to new wood. Maybe it's the species of wood they used? When I restore the floors, I won't try to make them look new again. I plan to leave some of the character marks which, to my eye, contribute to the warmth of old-house living. I'll have to know when to stop sanding - and be consistent about it.

phil
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Re: Exposed wood

Post by phil »

the more you sand so the thinner your floor gets so it's a trade off. I find that once I start sanding it's hard to leave a lot of patina, but some have done things like try to wash off the old shellac and put new shellac and not sand. I guess you could experiment with that and arguably the floor lasts nonger if it is never sanded.
for putty I use the water based stuff, I think made by "elmer" it's fine inside. dont' use it for exterior or it will just fall out. If you use the solvent based ones, they dry faster, the putty itself might be more durable. its hard to keep the putty from drying up during use but one trick is to load it into a big syringe once you have it mixed.
Im using powdered analine dyes from mohawk to get the putty the color I want.

in my kitchen I had a little disaster where I had rubber flooring down to protect the floor and the drain hose on the dishwasher started leaking when it drained. i didnt' know anything was wrong until I saw water creep out fromn underneath and it must have been a week or two the water was trapped between.
when I lifted the mats the water had really soaked the floor there. the boards were curling up and of course it pushed the joints up tight. I had put some filler in some of the cracks and I was glad I had used the water based because it was able to expel any putty that was preventing them from moving from the force of expansion. I think the floor might have buckled up if it had been a solvent based putty. I just left it it laid back, no real damage. I have been meaning to go back and just fill the larger cracks again but just in a corner.. when I laid that corner I had to replace some of the wood and used reclaimed wood. I found the reclaimed stuff was narrower by just a little. since it was a patch of an exisit ing floor I couldn't alter the spacing ( without taking up the rest of the floor) So the spacing so I had gaps of about 1/16 or so between a few of those boards.

as seasons and humidity change you will get some natural movement and over the years it works on the nails, there is some movement as you walk and it springs. most floors have some squeaks. You dont' want to try to stop the movement completely but you can always add a few more nails to quieten the squeaks. You can get special screws that are designed to break off below the floor surface as they are tightened.. I just use nails. I have noticed that since I have to drive a lot of the nails deeper, that's helping the squeaks.

if you ave to drive nails deeper just use a small tapered punch. only about 1/16 or so wide at the end. you can see the black marks where the nails are to locate them and then you can drive them deeper. remember the nails are driven in at about a 45 degree angle so that's the way you want to hit them, not straight down. looking at which way the floor is laid will determine this angle. the nails are driven through the upper side of the tung side of the flooring. if they weren't driven down very far to begin with they can be just under the surface of a new floor so dont think that just because y9ou sanded and saw a nail or two that this is the end of the world..

It makes a little hole the size of the punch. thats why I say to use a small one. also, a straight punch ( pin punch) doesn't exert the driving force in the same way as a tapered punch.. I have lots of different types of punches but what you want is a tapered one , or a nail set. you can use a bigger one if you come into "common nails" such as used for framing , they need a heavier impact to drive in.. if your punch slips off the nail as you drive it you'll make more damage. but no worries just dry to do as little damage as you can and anything else is going to be putty. when you are done you want as little surface area as possible covered by putty.

If the nails aren't very deep I drive them more, If a nail is only 1/64" deep you can cover that in putty and later the putty may fall out over the nail head.. but if the nail is 1/8" deep that putty is thicker and more substantial , so it is a bit tougher, won't fall out later, and the area of the floor covered by putty is no different.

if you sand until you start uncovering the nail it will need to be driven in so then you also have a little indent where the nail head was.

the part you need to pay attention to if you are thinking of refinishing is the thickness of the floor. stick a business card in the cracks and fold it over to get an idea how thick it is. what will happen if it is too thin is you will sand into the nails.. then you can drive them deeper and fix that with putty , but there are limits. if you think of it the 3/4" floor is divided into three parts to make the T and G. you only have the top third to work with. that's 1/4" or so. when the floor is originally installed it would have been sanded and each subsequent sanding takes off about 1 mm or maybe 1.5mm a 1/4 inch is 6 mm..
you dont' really want the part of the grooved side of the flooring to get thinner than about 1/8" or 3 mm If it's 2mm you might get away with it. If its only 1mm then you are going to see strips coming up and that would be a mess...

I don't know if you think in metric but a dime is a mm thick. 1/4" is like a stack of 6 dimes. figure you want at least two for it to not break up along the T and G if someone stomps their feet. that's only 4mm left to work with. plus the original sanding might have removed 1 mm from the get go.. so one or two sandings is about all you'll get from the floor. maybe three if they were really gentle. of course if it's been sanded you can bet they already worked a bit more in the high traffic areas.

look near the walls, under the baseboards see if you can see a step down from where they started sanding. some remove the baseboards and some don't but usually you will see some sort of step there and if it is a large step you know right away it has been sanded more.. also look at the floor for signs of the nail heads or putty used to cover them up. you can use this as indicators to get an idea how far you can go. Of course in a perfect world you'd stop before you see any nails but you have to work with what you have got.

I did the same with my carpets. I left them in and dd a lot of reno work, insulating drywall etc. I figured if I tripped over a can of paint or something then it was good insurance to keep them in place. by the time I got the paint done the carpets were trash but they were going to the dump anyway.

Ive removed some wallpaper and repaired plaster and Ive done some rooms in drywall. I'm not particularly attached to the plaster as a nostalgia thing. I dont think it affects the house value a lot and in the ned if the walls are flat and nice I'm ok with that. I took the wallpaper off obe room to find calcimine paint and then washed that off then it had a lot of spider web cracks and I used drywall tape and glue and fixed them. I also use the metal paper corner beads in all the corners. often the plaster ones with wallpaper get rounded out and funny looking. I did other rooms where I just put a sheet of drywall over the plaster on the inside walls.. it's much faster but you have to think how the thickness of the wall plays into the window and door trim fit.
my house is loud, on a loud street so in some places I used green glue and then drywall , green glue isnt' glue it is for soundprofing. in my living room I used special soundproof drywall. in all the rooms I have brought the finish level of the drywall up quite high so it isnt' wavy and messy. In some houses you may have a lot of curves of the plaster might have a certain waviness you like. Im not saying everyone should rip ou their plaster or cover it with drywall but one way is to just leave the wallpaper and the plaster, then use the drywall , even 1/4" drywall and then just pu the green glue on the back of the sheets and screw it in place and finish with conventional modern drywall techniques.

in my living room I gutted it to insulate well. even around the bay window. there I had some curves where it was done with plaster and when I re did it in drywall I had to make a couple of special shaped jigs to get the curve right . but I didn't wan tot loose that detail.. in modern homes they wouldn't have a curve they would finish it with angled cornerbead or just drywall tape.

in some houses the plaster is so wavy or textured that you might see a difference by using drywall buit mine is pretty flat and square. Its a personal choice which way you go but all I can say is you might consider laminating with drywall to save time if it suits your situation or sure, you can fix the plaster if you rather.. I'd think about what the differenc in the final result might be for each wall.. In my living room I used 1/2" drywall laminated over what was left of the lath and plaster on an interior wall. it even already had 1/2" drywall over some of where the plaster was so there was no saving it. now that wall has studs and plaster then drywall on both sides so its thick. I pulled out the baseboards and casings so I dont really care if the wall is thicker there.. but on the exterior walls where I have doors and windows I knew I'd notice the difference when I wen tot pu tmy casings back. Yes I could have added shims but I didnt' want hose walls thicker so I used 5/8" soundproof drywall in the place of the plaster. removing the plaster allowed me to insulate the exterior walls. now when thecasings go back it will all look original.

on the wall where my chimney is it is so dead there because of the brick I didnt' need more soundproofing there so I just used 1/4" drywall right over the plaster and wallpaper stuff it had on there.. it was easy and worked fine there. this is much easier than stripping to the plaster and refinishing the plaster. i did one room like that.. no one notices it's plaster whereas the others are drywall. to me that proved it wasn't worth saving all the old plaster..

in my livingroom saving th eplaster wasn't practiacal because it had wainscott up to eye level and that had been removed and replaced with old drywall and then levelled out.. I just took it all out to the studs so I could insulate but if noise hadn't been a concern I could have just used 1/4" drywall as a laminate and then just made 1/4" wood spacers for between the window frames and the window casings. that would have saved a lot of work.

Phil

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