Minor Surgery :: A Dutchman Operation

A long time ago one of the small casements suffered inexplicable damage to its upper exterior corner. The wound had been painted over. More than once. While it was in the hospital I fixed it with a Dutchman. Minor surgery in the grand scheme.

 

 

These windows are made of old growth wood. Dry and stable with tight grain. Justifying my habit of saving odd bits of old wood (because “I might need it”) I had a piece that was a good match. Likely eastern yellow pine. I marked the edges of material to be removed, used the router table to do the dirty work then squared up the corner. 

 

 

Next was milling up the new patch making it ever so slightly proud on the outside facing edges. Titebond III wood glue. Some clamps and it was off for an overnight in the recovery ward.

 

 

The next day a little hand planning and sanding. 

Ready for prime time. Rather, primer paint.

 

Removing Old Paint and Glazing

 Restoring the almost hundred-year-old casement windows means vanquishing the old glazing putty, removing the glass, stripping the paint down to bare wood, sanding the wood smooth, repairing any defects, cleaning the glass then putting it all back together with new materials. It’s a tedious, time-consuming operation that most people tell me is noble. At least that’s what politely they say in front of me.

 

There’s a reason they don’t make them like this anymore. Simply put there isn’t enough old growth wood. A properly restored and maintained window will last another hundred years.

 

 

For softening old paint my preference is to use an infrared heater. I have two of them. For broad acre removal such as siding a Speedheater 1100s. For smaller, more focused tasks a Speedheater Cobra (pictured below). They’re made in Sweden. They heat paint quickly to a temperature that doesn’t release the toxic lead fumes. That doesn’t necessarily mean one needn’t wear a lead-certified respirator! Anyway, one of these IR gadgets and the right pull scraper makes for quick work.

 

My backup is a Wagner variable speed, variable temp heat gun (pictured above). The variability is a game changer for heat guns. I still count on it for the trickier situations. The low fan speed means less debris flying around.

 

 

Cleaning decades of old glazing putty and paint takes a good, long playlist. Or in my case, catalogs. Pink Floyd, Supertramp and The Waterboys got me through all 42 panes of glass; front and back. And lots of single edge razor blades. T’was about ten fun-loving hours over several days to get this part done. 

 

 

Far from finished. Stay tuned for more.

Rescuing Old Hinges

The casement hinges are your basic standard assembly, six screw, five-knuckle steel door/cabinet variety. They were made, most likely, 100 years ago at the Stanley Works in New Britain, CT. Some of them have the SW ‘sweetheart’ maker’s mark. The rest bear the words Stanley Works, USA.

 

 

Although the hinge leaves are steel, the pins are solid brass. Brass and steel are compatible. Brass doesn’t rust. Good for exterior. None of the pins put up much of a fight when I used a punch and small hammer to tap them out from the bottom. Likewise, the casements readily let go once the pins were out.

 

The hinge leaves were attached with #8 slotted zinc woodscrews. Naturally, the leaves on the windows were covered with multiple coats of exterior paint. Their mating leaves were protected by a strip of copper weather stripping. Those screws were mostly rusty. Fitting the heat gun with its focus attachment and relying mostly on the point of a utility knife blade, I was able to get most of the evil paint out of the clogged slots. With a well-fitting standard screwdriver, the extractions went well. To access the screws hidden under the weather stripping I used tin snips cutting just enough to gently bend the copper reveling the screws. The copper bends back in place well enough. The jury is still out on replacing all of the original copper with new. 

 

 

To safely remove the paint from the hinges, they stewed in a crockpot with some Dawn and baking soda. Although I started this operation on my workbench, there was some off gassing so the pot was relocated to the garage for the duration. The crockpot will never see food again.

 

 

Ten hours later the 26 hinge leaves were well done.

 

 

Now it was time for picking and brushing. Virtually all the paint scraped off easily. Soft like cream cheese. I bored out the hinge knuckles with a long, quarter-inch-wide wire brush fitted to a drill motor. From there it was back to the wire brushes on the buffer.

 

 

Two coats of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer and several coats of Satin Black enamel later they’re ready for another ninety years. The original zinc screws will be replaced with #8 slotted solid brass screws. I found an exact match at boltdepot.com.

Casement Hard Worn Hardware

After freeing the casements and laying them flat on the sawhorses the first order of business was to wrangle all the hardware. Latches, catches, hinges and pins. (More on the hinges in a separate post).

 

Much to my delight the latch hardware and hinge pins are solid brass. Alas, the hinges are steel. Nevertheless, the brass items cleaned up nicely. Wire wheels on the variable speed bench buffer did all the work. Here are some before and after shots.

 

A Case for Casements

In an unsurprising boneheaded move, before putting it on the market, the previous owners of our house replaced the original (c. 1936) double-hung sash windows with the least expensive vinyl-clad crap on the market. In under ten years they’re already failing. 

Remember. The “replacement” in replacement windows means they need replacement frequently. A lending agent once told me that most replacement windows don’t outlast the mortgage. Mind you, a fifteen-year mortgage.

 

Fortunately, there remain five legacy casement windows that did not get sent to the landfill. In April, I embarked on what I knew would be a long endeavor to bring these old soldiers back to life. When I started they were all painted shut.

 

There are two on the front face on either side of the front door. They are 3 x 2 (panes, or lights as they’re called). On the back side, three adjoining casements that are each 5 x 2.

New Skin for an Old Garage

Winter has finally arrived and disrupted my garage re-siding project. Why I think I can complete these kind of projects this time of year eludes me. Anyway, the original high density fiber board, stuff that I call mush board since it turns to oatmeal when it gets wet, is being covered with reclaimed, vintage cedar clapboard. Good friend John Erikson salvaged the cedar and we worked out a labor-for-wood barter arrangement. A win-win.

There are many benefits to using salvaged lumber such as this: it's old growth so the wood is remarkably stable; no knots; super long pieces thanks to John's careful removal; and it didn't go to the landfill. Using it does require some patience to even up ends and fill old nail holes. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way.

This project got a late start in October and I'm amazed I made as much progress as I did considering it's now mid-November and winter has finally arrived in earnest. Putting up the clapboards doesn't take long. It's all the front end prep that sometimes feels like pushing a string. In this case I had to fashion up new door and window casings. We went with wide, flat stock to match the arts and crafts look of the house. Once the new casings were up and painted, we decided to add similar treatments to the corners to bring the whole thing into balance. More days. But the results are terrific. The clapboards have a 4-1/4" face to the weather to match the singles and cedar on the house.

The before and in-progress/after shots tell more of the story. Yes. The overhead doors look hideous. I know. And once I get the siding done, my plan is to rebuild the doors replacing the blank panels with tongue-and-groove bead board while attending to the weathered bottom rails. Meanwhile, I bought some "needs work" vintage arts and crafts outdoor sconces that I will restore and mount in place of the industrial light fixtures in the pictures.

To keep the general momentum going I'm planning to set up a workplace in the basement where I can prep and paint the clapboards. Then when (if?) we get a reasonable window of dry and relatively windless weather -- anything above 35 F -- I'll take the boards outside where I can cut and nail them up. The fine finishing work may have to wait until...

Garage south face before

Southwest corner with experimental cedar shingles above

Garage south face almost finished (doors to be done later)

New casings and corners!

These little lights. Let them shine, let them shine, let them shine!

A long time, ok, check that. Several years ago, I rescued two disused lanterns from dark and dusty corners of the UCC Vermillion church. These original soldiers (c. late 1920s) had been replaced by modern outdoor fixtures that give off the ubiquitous dreadful orange, almost radioactive-like glow so common among municipal streetlights.

Once I started into the triage phase, it was quickly apparent that I wasn't going to be able to preserve the patina while successfully removing the exterior paint splatter and other environmental indignities. One of them had suffered considerable abuse that included seemingly random holes drilled into the copper, some sort of grinder or file bruises, and a number of clumsy cold solder joints. Besides, getting to bare, shiny copper was the only way to ensure good solder repairs. The remedy called for taking the entire finish all the way down to bare copper and allowing the patina process to emerge naturally over time.

The before photo shows one of the fixtures (with bulb) and its decrepit wiring still in tact. The other one has a length of new wire temporarily fitted just to give me a sense of possibility. It took almost two years of casual pursuit to find glass that was a suitable match to the original.

As of today, one fixture is finished and ready for another century of service back at the UCC. The other one isn't far behind. Who doesn't love happy endings that make for new beginnings?

Two original UCC Vermillion copper lanterns before restoration 

The same two lanterns almost ready to go back "home" at UCC

New Old Cast Iron Framing Vise

Pictures of before and after my restoration of a loverly Stanley 400 framing vise bought on eBay.  I built the portable base to allow it to swivel and tilt as designed.

Stanley 400 "before" restoration

Same Stanley 400 "after" elbow grease restoration!

New Kitchen Faucet

The water here in Vermillion is so hard it's been described as liquid rock. Hard rock, perhaps. It's hard on faucets certainly. So, I managed to get around to replacing our kitchen faucet with a fancy, schmancy model we found on close out. We're still trying to get used to having so much pressure. Pix are before and after.

My New Old Table Saw

Once again, I neglected to pick up the camera as the first tool for the project.  Thus, I have no before shots of a 1970s-era Delta/Rockwell Contractor's Table Saw that I rescued last year.  It was destined for the scrap yard.  After countless hours of tearing it down, cleaning, polishing, painting and with less than $100 in new parts, the most expensive of which was the new 60 tooth blade, it's good as new.  Cuts wood as if it was warm butter.  The motor is super quiet -- as table saw motors go.

If you're interested in seeing other restoration projects I'm involved with, head over to The Vermillion Guild's blog.

To give a sense of its condition when it arrived, here's a shot of the rusty table.

Here's the restored c. 1974 Delta/Rockwell Contractor's Saw.

Replacing cast iron

Finally managed to put my courage to the sticking place and replace the 100 year-old cast iron sanitary lines for the first floor bathroom. Only took three solid days.  Top picture is before; bottom, though different perspective, is after. 

The impetus for replacing the cast iron was that it was rusting from the inside out.  You know it's time when a finger can be poked through the wall of the pipe.  The bizarre copper supply lines are more evidence that the plumbing in this house was done by an electrician and that a plumber muddled through the electrical work.  More on the electric down the path.

Here's a beautiful snapshot of the Missouri River valley taken from the scenic overlook just steps from "Our Old House." That's a thick coat of hoar frost on the trees; a remnant of dense overnight fog on a sub-freezing morning. It didn't last long with the bright sunshine. Taken in early February of this year.

Nigel on Skype

Nigel isn't really on Skype. He's getting a language lesson on YouTube from Herbie about "How to Talk Like a Corgi."

Hot, Hot, Hot

Our new hot water heater. A 40-gallon, high efficiency gas heater storage tank. The old one was likely heating 35 gallons of sediment and five gallons of water. The last leg of its gas line was a copper pipe! As you may know, copper and natural gas a natural enemies. Copper should never be used for gas. Water connections were made with 1/2" (not 3/4") pipe. But such is the quality of infrastructure we inherited and seek to remedy.

The new heater is a 12-year warranty Maytag-badged product manufactured by A.O. Smith. It's been installed to best practices with a flexible gas line, yellow Teflon tape for the gas fittings, a new 3/4" ball shut-off valve and an expansion tank. No leaks. Lots of hot water.

We looked into the prospects of an on-demand system. They hold tremendous appeal for efficiency. Alas, the combination of high entry costs, complexity of installation and notorious hardness of our municipal water kept us from taking the leap.

Interior projects :: here we come!

This weekend we finally started what will undoubtedly be a long journey of sprucing up the inside of Our Old House. Sprucing up is different from the myriad demolition projects of earlier posts. Target One: the dining room. We picked this room largely because it's got many doors and relatively little plaster space to prep and paint. Plus the walls were covered with a vinyl covering (always evidence of something sinister concealed beneath) that was quite simple to remove. Sure enough, removing the thick plastic vinyl revealed many large cracks in the walls. But we also found two previous coats of paint, one we believe to be the original and another coat on top of that. The oldest paint is a dark gold/yellow color. The layer on top is lighter, paler, less brown. These things are never certain having been contaminated with wall covering glue and years of crud. Nevertheless, we're delighted with our discovery because we're planning to paint the room a light yellowish color called "straw."

Typical of these endeavors, we got started and well along before realizing we'd not taken the requisite before shot for the blog. So I grabbed my mobile and snapped this crappy camera phone shot. I'll get some clearer pictures and descriptions posted soon.