I have made a start today on the restoring of the Oak fire surround. You can read about part 1 here, and part 2 here.
This week i have been machining some beautiful oak in my workshop to match the fire surrounds missing components, a lovely part of doing this is the smell of the wood in the workshop – its beautiful !
After taking careful measurements of the existing components from the complete foot i have drawn up a cutting list of components required and selected some nice European oak with similar grain pattern and first cut them to rough size on the bandsaw and then planed them smooth with the planer/thicknesser to exact sizes.
I then set up the router table and chose the cutters i intended to use in order to get the three different mouldings completed and ready, each of these mouldings are very unique and a very specific size, after i had them all done i cut them to the section required on the table saw.
After getting all this initial work completed i could then get each component cut to the exact size required and shape the parts i needed, i always use hand tools at this stage of any project as this is where it is real and you start to use your skills and feel a connection with the piece.
I was surprised at how many individual pieces were missing and needed to get this foot back to its original shape – 13 pieces in total.
Now i have all of the components ready i intend to do a dry fit of them to ensure i am happy with how they sit together and make any adjustments if needed before final assembly.
Now I’m happy i can proceed and get everything glued and pinned into place
I’m using Titebond 3 ultimate wood glue and pin each component into place with my compressed air nailer which has headless pins but they really have good holding power.
I then had to allow the glue to dry before i went on to the next stage which i must say i found it weird to do this to my nice timber – but it was absolutely necessary!
After spending time getting everything precise smooth square and nice i had to age the new wood to match the old – this involved beating it up ! and this went against the grain somewhat. I used a hammer, japanese wood rasp and a bronze wire brush to try and make the new wood look old – its really difficult to know when to stop and i am sure this process could be overdone!
I will be colour matching and finishing this part of the surround next week so i will keep you posted 🙂