I'm removing rotten wood, pine, plaster, foam, car body filler etc from an old bay window.
I'm thinking to replace just the rotten bits, not the whole thing, copying the shape of the old bits.
I have some old oak beams which could be 100 or 200 or 300 years old, how hard would this be to cut?
Maybe a new Freud blade for my table saw?
Or buy new oak which would be softer, but how much would it warp as it drys out?
advice please
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bloody hard. But you can do it. watch out for nails...
don't use green oak.
Its harder to work by hand than some other hardwoods, but it machines nicely.
Try what you have first - you may be surprised.
Don't count on it (unless its green, and then not suitable for window frames). Oak is quite hard and dense.
It will likely be kiln dried to a moisture content in the low teens. If anything it would be likely to get wetter rather than drier in this application.
Yup, not much left to patch - so letting in a whole new bit looks sensible. (and scarf in some new bottom ends to the mullions as well buy the looks of it).
I just replaced the seat and back of an old cast iron garden bench with some reclaimed solid oak wood. Whoops. The cast iron is reacting with the tannin in the oak and giving black stain, but it was such a p.i.t.a. job it can bloody stay that way Also there is a difference between American Oak and European Oak. The latter is more weather resistant ISTR
Make sure you use brass fixings, things like steel screws will simply rust away. If using screws always drill correct pilot and clearance holes and drive a steel screw in first before replacing with a brass one. Use a traditional wood screw to form the threads for the brass screw rather than the more modern twin threads and self drilling screws.
Richard
... or stainless steel, but the same advice applies about running a regular screw through beforehand - the bu&&ers shear much more easily than the usual non s/s screws. Once sheared you need to core out the area around the remains, plug the hole, and drill a slightly-larger clearance and pilot before using the new screw - a PITA.
Slightly off thread: my plug cutters only work in a pillar drill, are there any that will work in a hand drill?
Try what's in the shed, it should be OK with sharp tools but, if it's too cracked, wormed, nailed or hard work then buy some more. I've recently replaced some oak window sills and needed to buy a final
1.8m length of 80x80 sawn oak to machine down to the right profile. Quotes from two saw mills were in the region of £54 and £44 for kiln-dried, but eventually I found a local guy and paid £15 for some well-seasoned air-dried ... so ask around.
Yup, had the problem in the past. Outside the blackness will fade a bit with time.
I have often heard similar, although quite often they are both rated as "Durable" - so there may not be that much practical difference in many cases. English oak (rather than just "European") tends to perform very well in wet service applications (boats in particular) or when in contact with the ground.
The main problem is keeping them on centre...
One workaround is to use the plug cutter to make a hole (or a row of holes) through some 1/2" ply in the pillar drill. Then when wanting to use the plug cutter free hand, clamp the ply to the stock you want to make plugs from, and use it to guide the plug cutter.
This is what I use for cutting plugs. It's relatively cheap, works as my old support for vertical drilling doesn't take my modern drill.
Jonathan
Thanks, that hadn't occurred to me. FYI, from a quick look around it seems that there are some cutters out there with a centre pin, but they seem to be mostly a US thing
no, think about how they work
how would they be functional with a centre pin?
NT
The pin retracts once the cut is started:
Should have also said, another way is if you have a forstner bit of the same diameter - drill a shallow hole with that first, then follow with the plug cutter.
Somehow I have a box of metric forstner bits and a box of imperial plug cutters - c'est la vie :-(
The slats were through bolted with stainless steel bolts
30 bucks, I got a pillar drill for less than that.
NT
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