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The thread number is 242249. The question is almost exactly the same but it is shown as being posted by Carlos. It’s still high up in the second 50 threads.
Go back to the FixItFor’um page and click on the 100 threads link instead of the 50 threads that is standard. Then look down the list or search with your control+F keys to Find “Carlos” and it should be real quick and easy to find.
Henry in MI
Yes, you can. There are a lot of issues to consider and some decisions that having a bit of experience would help with. You might start by doing some homework on wood finishing and refinishing. A book called Understanding Wood Finishing, by Bob Flexner, is the best around on these subjects. Your library probably has it or you can probably find it on sale on-line, new or used. When you have the basic language down, then you can reasonably consider sanding down the finish, not the wood, and shooting it with tone spray or stripping the finish on the top and refinishing just the top and what products to use for both. I can’t suggest a good book on refinishing but with the basic knowledge, you get a pretty good idea what you can do.
Henry in MI
This was answered yesterday. Look down the list of topics and you will probably have to go to the longer topic list of 100.
Henry in MI
Wooden windows are made basically the same way that kitchen or other similar cabinet doors with panels are made. While you can use mortise and tenon jointery, routed shapes with increased glueing surfaces are also common for wood windows. If you attempt these, be prepared to spend a lot of money on router bits. The sets sold for making full sized doors should have what you want.
If you have the typical storm windows like the ones used in barns, these are made with mortise and tenon joints but you have to watch angles closely. The bottom of the sash, for instance, is angled to match the window sill angle so water will easily run off the sill. Basically you can make these with a table saw and a mortising machine will help a lot.
One other issue for you might be the wood. Finding thicker than 4/4 clear pine might be difficult in home centers. This is one of those “but it seems so easy” projects that can be for someone with a bit of experience in woodworking. But if you are just starting, this will be a lot cheaper if you just buy one window.
Henry in MI
Take a short piece of the crown molding and paper and pencil. Lay out the space inside of the molding using the framing square to simulate the wall and ceiling. Use a protractor to measure the angle between the “wall” leg of the framing square and the crown molding. This is called the spring angle.
Also lay out the face side of the crown molding. There are so many different variations that you could have with the vertical molding that it’s impossible to be too specific but you should be able to work with the drawing and the spring angle to plan cuts with your miter saw and coping saw to get a good fit. You will want to work out how to go about this using a short piece of molding before you try it on the long piece you plan to use.
One other comment is that you will want to use a cope joint where two walls meet at an inside corner. Another side note is that 2 home improvement or woodworking magazines have articles out now on installing crown molding and you might want to check this out.
Henry in MI
Before you do anything else, put a little mineral spirits/paint thinner on a rag and wipe it on the wood. THAT is the true color of the wood. You can do the same thing with water but the water evaporates away so fast that you don’t get the look for long. The mineral spirits will evaporate away also, it just takes longer.
From the base color that you exposed, you would add some yellow or amber with most finishing clear coats. Polycrylic will be about as close to having no effect on the base color and the test above will probably be about the same color as what you got with the Polycrylic.
You really can’t “stain” lighter than the base color. Materials like the pickled oak stain have a lot of pigment which does not change the wood to a lighter color. It just puts a white mask over the base color, sort of like a thin paint that you later set in place with a clear coat finish. So the bottom line is that you can not get a color lighter than the base color of the wood unless you paint it in some method.
Henry in MI
Chris, if you are using foam moldings, they would be perfect for the job. I don’t think that I would use wood moldings in the tub/shower stall area. The wood would be subject to a lot of variations of heat and humidity and you would have a lot of wood movement with resulting cracks or gaps over time.
If you really feel that you have to do this with wood moldings, prime and paint them front and back before installation. Ask your paint store to put extra mildewcide in the paint unless the paint you buy is specific to bathrooms. If the paint store you visit doesn’t know what you are talking about or says that it can not be done, go to another paint store and look for either a local store specializing in paint or a store of one of the major paint manufacturers like Sherwin-Williams.
Henry in MI
Look on the other side of the wall from where your bath faucets are located. There will probably be a panel that can be easily removed to get at the faucets and much of the tub plumbing from the back.
If you can’t find a panel, I really suggest calling a plumber. Bath tubs are not made to be easily removed and, while it may cost for the plumber, the cost to replace drywall, tile, plumbing fixtures, tubs and other parts could be a lot more.
Henry in MI
One suggestion is to paint the wall that connects the 3 rooms with one color and then paint the rest of the rooms with complimentary colors. You might also consider doing this in just the living room and kitchen and paint the flowing wall and all of the hall the same color.
Another way is to add an artificial break in the walls with molding or moldings. Some vertical molding pieces could be used to separate the 3 rooms.
Finally, if you are bold enough, you can use contrasting colors and just paint an edge break. This does not have to be a straight vertical line. You can make the color change at a diagonaled straight line or with a line painted in a long arc. Or you can just paint everything off white and live with it.
Henry in MI
There is a product called tone sprays that are colored lacquers. These are used to even out stain colors. You can mist on the lacquer and apply the poly right over the tone sprays. I buy them at a Woodcraft store but they are not in either the Woodcraft or Rockler catalogs that I have. They are in the Woodworker’s Supply catalog and are a Master product, 954- number series and 440 (oak) and 447 (oak golden) are a couple of the many individual numbers.
Henry in MI
Go to http://www.peelaway.com and check out their line. I know that they have appropriate chemical strippers and that that I use their other products. Sorry, I don’t have direct knowledge of this as I have not had the need. If you have any questions, you can contact Hy at the Peel Away site for his comments.
Henry in MI
One way to remove candle wax is to heat it to melt it and absorb the liquid. You can do this by putting several layers of paper towel on top of the wax and heating it with an iron. I would start with this and you can get almost all of it up. You might need to finish the process by spraying the last traces with WD-40 and wiping that off with more paper towel.
Henry in MI
Without seeing your particular setup, I would tend to agree with the contractor. The end grain of wood does absorb water much more easily than the sides. If there is a chance that water or high humidity will be present and any chance at all that there will be absorption into the end grain, you will at least have gaps develop between the boards at the bottom and probably have cracking eventually. If you have something like rubber or vinyl tile on the floor under the wood or you sealed the ends of the boards, you may not have much of a problem.
Henry in MI
When you remove the baseboards, you are not trying to remove the brads with them. The more that you can pull the brad heads through the wood, the less mess you will have on the face. Pull brads from the wall or the molding after you have the molding off the wall. When you put it back, renail then set the nails and fill the small holes. Minwax and several other companies make small jars or sticks of colored wax that are great for filling the holes if you have stained and clear coated moldings. You can fill the small holes flush with wall spackle and just dab a bit of the right paint color on painted moldings.
One other tip is to number the moldings as they come off so you know where they went. If your trim carpenters did it right, they installed the moldings starting with the longest wall and finishing with the shortest section and using both miter and cope joints as appropriate. You want to remove them in the opposite way from how they were installed. You will probably want to start with the shortest length of molding but check the joints so you don’t end up fighting with the bottom piece of a coped joint on the end where you are starting.
Henry in MI
Stain is made up of various combinations of dyes and pigments. The exact ingredient blend depends on the color. Pigments basically stay on the surface and dyes penetrate but do not go far into the wood. It is possible to bleach the dye to remove that part of the color and it is possible to sand to remove the color. The problem with sanding is that you may have to remove enough wood that you also get beneath the top layer of plywood or you lose defination on carved areas or edges. The problem with bleaching is that it will be messy and can be a bit dangerous since you will be using fairly strong chemicals. You do have to remove the clear surface finish to do any of this and you MAY lose a bit of the color (pigment) when you strip the surface. Personally, with your color situation, I would not do it.
Henry in MI
