The Framers Forum

Thought i would share this to show that the morso and underpinner can be useful for other jobs. I machined those mouldings on this door, put in a reverse rebate so they sat over the door rails and stiles. These were cut on the morso and pinned making life much easier.

What it made me think was for people who don't have the machines i have to make a door from scratch, if you buy a plain panelled door, you can make a fancier door adding your own mouldings. It could work with cheaper kitchen cupboard doors.

The mouldings on this door transform it and this house is in central Bath so it is in keeping. If you walk down this road, almost all the doors have mouldings and not one is the same.

This is not framing so apologies if not of interest to most, but it might inspire someone to find ways to use mouldings for different ways maybe doing some diy on their house.

Cheers

Nick

This is great Nick. I think it definitely has a place in the forum.

I used my morso to cut architrave moulding for around a door, but quickly realised that the angles were nowhere near 45 degrees, so I had to keep shaving bits off until I got close.

Brilliant transformation on a door.
I did the same once but around some new windows we had put in ( box sash - of course). I was able to build a wide architrave with several different mouldings all around the inside so that it all looked rather splendid and important.
It works a treat around internal doors too, as pramsay said.

On the subject of doors etc, what paint do you recommend for exterior wood?

The door is redwood so primer is zinnser 123, topcoat is dulux weathershield. You can get any colour including F &B colours mixed in weathershield paint.

The weather board is iroku so has had an aluminium primer on first.

I have recently been using linseed oil paint on some hardwood windows which is suppposed to be very hard wearing. However, it is a pain to work with. It still be wet after a few days unless you can get it out in the sunlight. It is the uv light that helps it cure.

Cheers

Nick

Thanks Nick for the paint info.
I have one gable end window that gets really blasted by the weather. Hot baking sunshine in the summer and withering wet and cold in the winter.
One mistake I made was to use one of these 'modern' acrylic primer/undercoats beneath an oil based top coat.
The finish lasted 1 year with the paint cracking and peeling.
I scraped back and yes, used a Zinnser primer and then oil based undercoat with a further oil gloss coat.
That has lasted much better - but still some cracks appearing.
My understanding is that you can't beat a real traditional oil-based paint formula. They are much more flexible than the new acrylics which are brittle and crack easily under stress.

Liinseed oil paints sound like a good idea. Do they come ready mixed? It sounds like they need more driers added to speed curing.

Dermot - what timber is the window? If it is a hardwood, that would explain the cracking paint. The tannins in hardwood will cause most paints to flake off over a relatively short period of time. Old paints contained lead which acted as a barrier. Aluminium primer is now used on hardwood, or the linseed paint. Decorators have told me that water based paints have improved a lot recently and on redwood, it has done well with doors and windows i have made.

With the linseed paint, you dilute the first coat with 50% paint, 35% raw linseed oil and 15% balsam (also called gum) turpentine. That acts as a primer, then you paint 2 top coats of the paint. It goes on nicely with a brush or sprayer, but it does say on the instructions that you need to put it in sunlight for it to cure properly. On 1 window, it is not such an issue (if we get any sun), but with 32 windows and sashes, it was a pain. I tried to do some of them in the hot spell we had and it didn't dry as it must have been too hot ad they remained sticky.

I am sure it will work out a good solution, but at £162 per 2.5 litres, it is not cheap. But i guess it will be more cost effective than having 32 windows repainted much sooner.

Nick

Hi Nick,
The sill is hardwood and I believe the frame is pine. On the next re-paint, I'll take your advice and scrape off the flaking areas and prime with the aluminium primer.
Whilst the sill had the most damage, the frame also had to contend with blue-tits pecking at the paint looking for small spiders etc!

You could try adding some terebine driers to the linseed oil paint. As far as I understand linseed oil dries/cures by oxidation. Adding driers chemically speeds up that process. The only caution is not to add too much driers as that can cause cracking on the dried paint film.

Dermot- i have ordered some terebine drier so will experiment with some offcuts. Thanks for the tip.

Nick