What are my options here for making this railing whole again? Does anyone have experience remaking these? Would you be willing to duplicate them if I sent one off as a pattern?
What other advice can you give me? It’s a clients home that I do all her roof work. The metal porch roof this sits on needs attention too.
Replies
A few more pictures of these.
View Image
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Walter,
A millwork company that has CNC with a c-axis can make those. The volutes can also be made on a band saw and series of routers or a W.H. moulder.
Chuck Slive, work, build, ...better with wood
Chuck,
One shop she checked into wanted to redo the complete she bang for the extreme long dollar.
I think I'll take one apart and go to another shop locally.
Thanks for your help.
Walter
Are wood shop could do the work, here in Vermont, let us know.
Liam, Do you have a complete woodshop too ??
Walter
Yes, my parter has a full wood molding and paint shop. CNC routers. Did you want them fixed or replaced. Is it one pcs of wood? The shop is a little north of Burlington Vermont. I have used the Abatron to before both filler and rot-stop filler, work good. On porch rails and structural column.
Edited 3/28/2008 3:15 pm ET by Slateman
If the easings look like that I can't see how some of the other rail elements wouldn't be at least in the first stages of rot too. Personally - I'd be inclined to replace the entire top rail. And I'd check other elements of the assemblies very closely.
Matt,
The rest of the top rail is still solid with the exception of some softness where the joints are.
Abatron will be used there.
Walter
That rot got started in the exposed end grain, where it usually starts. The straight sections may or may not be ok. It would be safer to replace the whole thing, but maybe not necessary.
The guy whose shop is next to ours just did a whole fence with that detail for a site in Portland. He laminated all the parts out of Honduran Mahogany, glued with Resourcinol and spray-painted before installation. I can get you his info if you're interested.
I'd be inclined to make it out of Azek. Not the whole rail, it would have too much flex, but just that curved section.
Just thought I'd throw this in...
Another option would be to rebuild them with epoxy. Dig out as much rotted material as you can, let it thoroughly dry, saturate it with MinWax wood hardener, drill and epoxy some steel rods into it, then rebuild it with bondo. It would take some doing to get the shape just right, but you could do it on-site with locally available materials. --------------------------------------------------------
Cheap Tools at MyToolbox.netSee some of my work at AWorkOfWood.com
Its a perfect application for FlexTec epoxy where the wood isn't too far gone, and way cheaper than fabricating pieces.
You can make a thin plastic 'template' of the railing profile to avoid 'freehanding'
http://www.advancedrepair.com/architectural_epoxy/architectural_epoxy.htm
Jeff
Edited 3/28/2008 1:47 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
Jeff,
I'm going to do some research on that. Thanks.
Walter
Ted,
Abatron is my choice for epoxies, but I think some wooden parts must be fabricated.
Walter
Mike,
She won't want to use Azek - believes what was used in 1914 should still work today.
Walter
I forgot, here's a guy we use for all our "unusual" woodworking stuff. His name's Alex, he's in Woolwich--
http://tidewatermillwork.com/
Mike and everyone,
Just got back from a hard day laying stone roofing so I'll respond in a bit.
Thank you all though for the help so far.
Walter
Mike,
Thanks again.
Walter
Mike,
Thanks again. I e mailed some pictures to the owner of the co. you linked me to.
Once I get him a drawing he;ll give me a quote.
Best regards, Walter
You're welcome!
Mike,
Went down to Tidewater this morning to pick up the pieces Alex made for me.
I couldn't believe his shop set up !
He did a remarkable job on the volutes and risers.
I'll put pictures up tomorrow.
Best regards , Walter
Yeah, not bad huh?
I'll look forward to the pictures.