Feltwell
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- Messages
- 6,377
- Location
- Shropshire, England
I thought folks who've not seen one before might be interested in this - gives a longer lasting repair than any "normal" filler when used externally. Internally, I don't use it - too expensive and too hard to sand down, the Ronseal Performance 2-part wood filler does just fine.
So, first off, the job in hand. Feltwell Towers has some fancy gable end timbers that require repair - more than I thought, will come to that in a moment
. Here they are:-
And after a little bit of sanding down on the worst bits, and taking a piece of rotten moulding for copying:-
The top section has a split that goes all the way through the timber, which is about 2" thick:-
This needs to be a long lasting repair - the only way to get to this area, due to the bay window below, is on scaffolding, which is of course expensive. I've got scaffolding up at the moment to do the brickwork repointing, which has now been finished in this area.
You can just use the epoxy system as a filler, but in this case it was better to take the decayed wood out and splice a new piece of timber in, which would bridge the crack and help further stabilise it, as well as reducing the amount of epoxy needed. The vertical piece of timber is much thicker and runs behind our damaged piece - so first of all I drilled holes above and below the crack in the sound timber and inserted beech dowels, glued in with PVA, to make sure it was well jointed to the vertical timber behind & stabilise the crack. Then I used a router to take out the top half inch or so of timber, back to sound wood. I also took the opportunity to extract some old decayed wood screws, drill out the holes and replace with beech dowels.
Next stage is to prime the area. The system I use (Timbabuild) has a primer kit of two bottles of liquid with 2 small measuring cups - you mix 2:1 Base:Hardener in a dish and paint it on with a disposable paint brush. It's very thin and penetrates the wood - I've also used it to seal end grain on timber. You have to paint it on 20 minutes before you apply the filler, but that's a minimum, you can leave it much longer if you like. It won't be dry after 20 minutes but I guess it's penetrated enough.
You then mix the filler up. Timbabuild do 2 types - ERC10 and EHB60. ERC10 is a rapid cure, and unless you need this (you can paint it after 1 hour) I really wouldn't bother with it. It's very sticky, quite runny (it tends to slump in vertical use) and difficult to shape neatly. EHB60 is very different - designed for deeper depths, it takes at least 4 hours to go off, but it's much thicker and easier to use - not so sticky, easy to shape, doesn't slump. Both are suitable for splicing according to the manufacturer. In these pictures I'm using ERC10, just because I have a tube to use up.
The tubes go in a special gun which extrudes both tubes together - it comes out of a nozzle as one. You extrude it onto a board, mix it up with a filling knife and away you go. With the ERC10 you have to work quickly before it goes off, hence why there's no picture of it in the mix here! It's evil smelling and looking stuff when it comes out of the tube (those who have had babies will have a flashback!). The EHB60 is not quite so potent.
I spread some into the routed groove, and pushed my piece of filler timber firmly in, which pushed the filler right the way through the crack behind it, then filled all the other areas I needed to. At this stage it looks messy - the EHB60 is much neater in use and so requires less sanding.
It's not the easiest stuff to sand down. You can do it with power tools, I use a random orbit sander, but you have to be careful not to get it too hot. When it's set it's firm but still with a bit of flex to it - with that and with it sticking so well, that why it should last. My piece of filler timber was deliberately slightly proud of the surface, to sand back to suit. No pictures of the finished job yet, still got to do it!
So that's it for the kit. It's not cheap stuff, you need the primer, gun and EHB60 as a minimum, but I think it works very well. They do a starter kit in a posh wooden box but I wouldn't bother, if you don't want the fancy box it's cheaper to buy the bits separately.
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/004400510002/TIM4703
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/004400510002/TIM4702
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/Timbabuild-products-online/TIM4700
Reddiseals and Mightons sell it as well if you're buying sash bits from them.
Why was the timber worse than I thought? Well that bit was absolutely fine, but lower down I could see a bit of rot, although the outer skin was solid. I hoped I could machine off a surface layer and splice a new piece of timber on.
Alas when I machined the surface off, I found this bottom section had completely rotted on the inside, although the outer skin all round was solid bar one small area:-
Worse was yet to come. I cut the section above off just above the horizontal rail and found good wood, which was a relief. So I hoped the carved finial at the bottom would be OK, I could cut it off and attach it to a new piece of timber. Alas it too was completely hollow - these holes go right the way to the bottom, although the outer skin is solid!
I don't fancy trying to carve a new piece of timber, it will take ages. I'm debating what to do with it - current thought is to soak it in a bucket of wood preservative for a couple of days, let it really penetrate, as I can't clean all the rotten stuff out - then let it dry and fill it full of epoxy, prior to dowelling it back on to the bottom of a new hardwood block, that will in turn be dowelled back onto the remains of the vertical rail above. The failure last time was due to water penetration beneath the horizontal rail, the joint wasn't well cut - well this time it will be, and well sealed with epoxy as well, so I think it will last.
Some of the problems are due to the cut of wood used - the centre of the tree was very close to the surface, causing a crack running the full length of the timber. I've ran a router down it and filled it with epoxy to hopefully seal it for good.
So, first off, the job in hand. Feltwell Towers has some fancy gable end timbers that require repair - more than I thought, will come to that in a moment
. Here they are:-
And after a little bit of sanding down on the worst bits, and taking a piece of rotten moulding for copying:-
The top section has a split that goes all the way through the timber, which is about 2" thick:-
This needs to be a long lasting repair - the only way to get to this area, due to the bay window below, is on scaffolding, which is of course expensive. I've got scaffolding up at the moment to do the brickwork repointing, which has now been finished in this area.
You can just use the epoxy system as a filler, but in this case it was better to take the decayed wood out and splice a new piece of timber in, which would bridge the crack and help further stabilise it, as well as reducing the amount of epoxy needed. The vertical piece of timber is much thicker and runs behind our damaged piece - so first of all I drilled holes above and below the crack in the sound timber and inserted beech dowels, glued in with PVA, to make sure it was well jointed to the vertical timber behind & stabilise the crack. Then I used a router to take out the top half inch or so of timber, back to sound wood. I also took the opportunity to extract some old decayed wood screws, drill out the holes and replace with beech dowels.
Next stage is to prime the area. The system I use (Timbabuild) has a primer kit of two bottles of liquid with 2 small measuring cups - you mix 2:1 Base:Hardener in a dish and paint it on with a disposable paint brush. It's very thin and penetrates the wood - I've also used it to seal end grain on timber. You have to paint it on 20 minutes before you apply the filler, but that's a minimum, you can leave it much longer if you like. It won't be dry after 20 minutes but I guess it's penetrated enough.
You then mix the filler up. Timbabuild do 2 types - ERC10 and EHB60. ERC10 is a rapid cure, and unless you need this (you can paint it after 1 hour) I really wouldn't bother with it. It's very sticky, quite runny (it tends to slump in vertical use) and difficult to shape neatly. EHB60 is very different - designed for deeper depths, it takes at least 4 hours to go off, but it's much thicker and easier to use - not so sticky, easy to shape, doesn't slump. Both are suitable for splicing according to the manufacturer. In these pictures I'm using ERC10, just because I have a tube to use up.
The tubes go in a special gun which extrudes both tubes together - it comes out of a nozzle as one. You extrude it onto a board, mix it up with a filling knife and away you go. With the ERC10 you have to work quickly before it goes off, hence why there's no picture of it in the mix here! It's evil smelling and looking stuff when it comes out of the tube (those who have had babies will have a flashback!). The EHB60 is not quite so potent.
I spread some into the routed groove, and pushed my piece of filler timber firmly in, which pushed the filler right the way through the crack behind it, then filled all the other areas I needed to. At this stage it looks messy - the EHB60 is much neater in use and so requires less sanding.
It's not the easiest stuff to sand down. You can do it with power tools, I use a random orbit sander, but you have to be careful not to get it too hot. When it's set it's firm but still with a bit of flex to it - with that and with it sticking so well, that why it should last. My piece of filler timber was deliberately slightly proud of the surface, to sand back to suit. No pictures of the finished job yet, still got to do it!
So that's it for the kit. It's not cheap stuff, you need the primer, gun and EHB60 as a minimum, but I think it works very well. They do a starter kit in a posh wooden box but I wouldn't bother, if you don't want the fancy box it's cheaper to buy the bits separately.
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/004400510002/TIM4703
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/004400510002/TIM4702
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/Timbabuild-products-online/TIM4700
Reddiseals and Mightons sell it as well if you're buying sash bits from them.
Why was the timber worse than I thought? Well that bit was absolutely fine, but lower down I could see a bit of rot, although the outer skin was solid. I hoped I could machine off a surface layer and splice a new piece of timber on.
Alas when I machined the surface off, I found this bottom section had completely rotted on the inside, although the outer skin all round was solid bar one small area:-
Worse was yet to come. I cut the section above off just above the horizontal rail and found good wood, which was a relief. So I hoped the carved finial at the bottom would be OK, I could cut it off and attach it to a new piece of timber. Alas it too was completely hollow - these holes go right the way to the bottom, although the outer skin is solid!
I don't fancy trying to carve a new piece of timber, it will take ages. I'm debating what to do with it - current thought is to soak it in a bucket of wood preservative for a couple of days, let it really penetrate, as I can't clean all the rotten stuff out - then let it dry and fill it full of epoxy, prior to dowelling it back on to the bottom of a new hardwood block, that will in turn be dowelled back onto the remains of the vertical rail above. The failure last time was due to water penetration beneath the horizontal rail, the joint wasn't well cut - well this time it will be, and well sealed with epoxy as well, so I think it will last.
Some of the problems are due to the cut of wood used - the centre of the tree was very close to the surface, causing a crack running the full length of the timber. I've ran a router down it and filled it with epoxy to hopefully seal it for good.
