Frank Pellow
Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2007
- Messages
- 2,743
Last week at my daughter Kristel's house in Ottawa, I took down an old fence, repaired most of the material, then rebuilt the fence. The fence was at least 25 years old and, although built of good red cedar, the construction technique was the worst I have ever seen. Here are a couple of "before" photos:
[attachthumb=#1] [attachthumb=#2]
Some of the wood at the ends of the boards was so deteriorated that some chickadees pecked away looking for embedded "food":
[attachthumb=#3]
But most of the cedar was in good shape so I shortened the boards to 54 inches (from 60 inches) and the posts to 60 inches and put them all in the garage to dry. It had been raining quite hard the day before I started work and it continued to rain off and on for three days.
[attachthumb=#4]
The old posts had been embedded in concrete but the cement was well below grade so about 10 inches of post had been exposed to the moist earth and that portion had rotted all the way through on some posts and most of the way through on others. This time I chose to drive fence "spikes" into the ground avoiding the locations of the underground concrete.
[attachthumb=#5]
After waiting a day, I picked some of the driest boards and started to clean them up using my Rotex 150 sander. But, the switch on the sander started acting up and I could only run it holding the switch in the ON position. This was very awkward to do and, even then, the sander frequently cut out. What to do? I have another Rotex 150 sander but it was 400 kilometres away in Toronto. I did have my RAS 115.04 E sander with me but the brush inserts that are used as part of its dust collection would get in the way on the large 5.5 inch wide surface of the boards. I decided to remove the brushes, don a mask (missing in the photo below), and let the dust collect on everything:
[attachimg=#6] [attachimg=#7]
Using Saphir P80 abrasives, it took me about 5 minutes to clean up each of about 100 fence boards. I cleaned the abrasive's frequently using a block of crepe, but some of the removed gunk clogged up the paper anyway so I ended up going through 9 pieces of the abrasive.
Anyway, the boards cleaned up nicely and I was able to rebuild the fence (this time, properly):
[attachthumb=#8]
It needs another coat of stain, a gate, and some small tops on the posts. I will make the gate and the tops and install them the next time I visit Ottawa.
[attachthumb=#1] [attachthumb=#2]
Some of the wood at the ends of the boards was so deteriorated that some chickadees pecked away looking for embedded "food":
[attachthumb=#3]
But most of the cedar was in good shape so I shortened the boards to 54 inches (from 60 inches) and the posts to 60 inches and put them all in the garage to dry. It had been raining quite hard the day before I started work and it continued to rain off and on for three days.
[attachthumb=#4]
The old posts had been embedded in concrete but the cement was well below grade so about 10 inches of post had been exposed to the moist earth and that portion had rotted all the way through on some posts and most of the way through on others. This time I chose to drive fence "spikes" into the ground avoiding the locations of the underground concrete.
[attachthumb=#5]
After waiting a day, I picked some of the driest boards and started to clean them up using my Rotex 150 sander. But, the switch on the sander started acting up and I could only run it holding the switch in the ON position. This was very awkward to do and, even then, the sander frequently cut out. What to do? I have another Rotex 150 sander but it was 400 kilometres away in Toronto. I did have my RAS 115.04 E sander with me but the brush inserts that are used as part of its dust collection would get in the way on the large 5.5 inch wide surface of the boards. I decided to remove the brushes, don a mask (missing in the photo below), and let the dust collect on everything:
[attachimg=#6] [attachimg=#7]
Using Saphir P80 abrasives, it took me about 5 minutes to clean up each of about 100 fence boards. I cleaned the abrasive's frequently using a block of crepe, but some of the removed gunk clogged up the paper anyway so I ended up going through 9 pieces of the abrasive.
Anyway, the boards cleaned up nicely and I was able to rebuild the fence (this time, properly):
[attachthumb=#8]
It needs another coat of stain, a gate, and some small tops on the posts. I will make the gate and the tops and install them the next time I visit Ottawa.
