Restoring a Tri-ang DH/7 Townhouse - Part Three

The roof of my house had sustained a bit of damage over the years. 

There was an area where the ply had been damaged along one of its edges and part of one of the corners was broken off.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos as I made my repairs, so I can only describe how I did them, though I do have before and after photos too.

This was the area where the plywood had delaminated on the bottom edge of the roof. To repair it, I used a thin (1 mm) sheet of balsa wood from my stash. 

I could see that the damaged area was three layers of ply deep, so with a craft knife, I cut a small piece of balsa to fit into the deepest part of the damaged area and glued this in place.

Next, I cut another piece of the balsa to fit the second deepest part of the delaminated area and glued this in place too (over the first piece).

Lastly, I cut a piece of balsa to fit the remaining part of the damaged area and glued this in place (over the previous two pieces) bring the surface up to the correct level.

I then used wood filler to fill in the little gaps around the balsa. When the wood filler was dry, I gave the whole area a sand down with a sanding block for a nice flat, smooth finish.

I could have just filled the whole area with filler but because it was on the edge of the roof and was quite deep I felt that wood would give the repair more strength.

Repairing the corner piece was a bit trickier and so is describing how I did it, largely because I was making it up as I went along!

I started with a length of balsa wood about 2 cm deep and perhaps 3 cm wide and cut the length to match the length of the area which needed to be reinstated.

Then, using a craft knife, I basically whittled the underside of the piece to fit the shape of the roof corner it would sit on. The process was: shave a bit off, try the piece in the gap, shave a bit more, try it in the gap, and so on until I had decent fit.

Next I glued the piece in place on the corner of the house. This left me with quite a clunky square corner which I then shaved (with my craft knife) and sanded into the correct shape.

Again, I used wood filler to fill the gaps between the original wood and my repair and sanded it all smooth once the wood filler was dry.

I must admit that I was quite proud of how it worked out! The old "just give it a go" motto never fails. Actually, it really does but we won't go into that. 🙃

Until next time,

Zoe

Restoring a Tri-ang DH/7 Townhouse - Part Two

Do you ever get to that stage where there's so much to do that it's all a bit overwhelming?

That's definitely where I'm at just now but I'm trying not to think about it and just plough on. 

So, starting with the front:

This is how it looked when it arrived. A previous owner had obviously made a start on removing the red paint from the front.

I soon discovered that it was water-soluble and came off very easily with a damp cloth.

However, the paint had been applied very thickly, so several buckets of very red water later, it looked like this.

I was going to need to dismantle the balconies to clean behind them properly.

The balcony rails and balustrades came apart fairly easily with a bit of riving and I was able to clean behind them.

Removing them will make all of the work to the front a lot easier.

Unfortunately there were still traces of that pesky red paint in the nooks and crannies which concerned me because it was so water-soluble that it would surely bleed into the cream paint I'd be using on the front of the house.

So my trusty old toothbrush came out and a lot of water, Cif and elbow grease later...

...every last particle has been removed. I hope.

I quite like the soft yellow colour which has been uncovered but it's not how the house was meant to look so it won't be staying.

Next up were the sides:

The sides had been overpainted in white and I initially thought they were a lost cause. However, closer investigation revealed that there were two layers of brick paper underneath the paint.

The paint had obviously adhered to the top layer of paper which flaked off relatively easily to reveal the original brick paper underneath. Bingo!

I could see that the condition of the original paper wasn't brilliant but I thought it was at least worth trying to rescue what was left of it.

This is what I ended up with. I know it's pretty shabby but I was really quite chuffed with it given the starting point.

However even I couldn't live with this level of shabby, so out came my paintbox.

 

I mixed a colour as near to the brick paper as I could get and carefully filled in the gaps. I then rubbed paint into the 'scuffs' in the  paper and wiped the residual off with a just damp cloth to get a more even finish.

This is how it looks close up. The end result was never going to be perfect but I'm pretty pleased with it and at least the original paper is still there to see. 

I'm toying with the idea of finishing off with a layer of clear beeswax but haven't decided about that yet.

Until next time,

Zoe