A Place to Sit: Restoring a Park Bench

Jen and I make a habit of going to the West Bottoms on the first full weekend of every month to look at the shops that are only open then.  Usually it is vintage, antique or re-purposed stuff.  We found the two sides of an old park bench made out of cast iron.  I thought it was a waste that they were selling them for garden art separately.  I wanted to save them and Jen said go for it.

One of the sides before the magic happens.

 The two sides had a lot of rust showing and the hardware was rusted.

Rusted

The first step I took was to take off the rust with a wire brush at the end of my drill.  It took about two hours to get all the nooks and crannies.  Then sand it down with two different grits of sand paper and wipe off all the rust particles left.
 

Safety first eyes and ears. 

A hard part was to remove the bolts that had rusted.

I used a little bit of this, but wasn't getting anywhere so...

I moved on to using this.

Next it was to give it a good coat of paint to prevent it from rusting again.

Primer:

Finish coat:

After I prepared the sides it was time to cut the slats.  I decided to use cypress for the slats.  It is naturally weather resistant and I like the chestnut color of the wood. 

Cypress

(Next few sentences below are boring but important steps.  Feel free to skip.)
I needed 12 slats.  Nine of those slats were going to be the same size and since I had nothing to go off, figuring out the width was a bit of trial and error.  I decided on making them 2.5 inches wide and 48 inches long.

The other three slats had to be a different size because two were fitting around the front curve and the last one was on the back curve.  They ended up being 1.75 inches wide and 48 inches long.

After cutting them it was time to drill the holes.  I made 1/4 inch holes 3/4 inches in on either side.

 I needed to round the edges of the boards to ensure comfort for the tooshie.  I used a hand plane that has a 1/4 inch round over on each of the slats.

(Next sentence is another boring part, but yet again important to avoid splinters in unwanted places.)
Then it was time to sand and if you know me and sanding there is no love for it.  I used 80 grit, 120 grit and 220 grit to finish it off.

Finally it was time to put it together.  After doing research I noticed that most benches have a middle bracket.  It holds the slats from moving too much and then a metal bar going from one side to the other to keep it up right and not slanting one way or another.

I had no idea what I was going to do for this at first, but it came to me thinking back about when I was helping Dad  make a bunk bed for my niece and nephew.  Dad had used a piece of sturdy aluminum, but yet we could still drill through it.  That was what I needed except not as thick because it needed to be molded to the form of the slats.  I went down to True Value (I go there for most of my workshop needs mainly because they have great customer service and the price is right) with my dilemma and Michael set me on the right path.  I was able to buy an aluminum metal bar, shape it to the form of the slats, and drilled holes through the aluminum using drill screws.  I attached the slats to the sides, fastened the center metal bracket, and  screwed the metal bar from one side to the other with help from Jen.

Center bracket

Bracket reaching from one side to the other.

At this point there is no plan to put a finish on the cypress.  It is supposed to age to a gray that is supposed to be nice.  If it does and we don't like it I can always sand it down (yippee) and apply a clear finish at that time.

Here is how it turned out.

Finished

Preparing for maiden voyage.

A great place to ponder greater things in life.

Not such a great place to take a nap.

Dovetail Boxes

Now that school has been out for one day, at least for me, (sorry Jen) I have time to show you what I have been up to in the Carle's Workshop.

My grandfather-in-law (John) gave me some pine that he wasn't going to use.  I was very grateful and decided to put it to use.  John is a very skilled carpenter.  He is always being asked to make something or other for people in his town or his family.  One of the things he makes regularly free of charge are flag boxes for fallen veterans that are buried in the Iowa Veterans Cemetery, which he lives only a few miles from.  So I wanted to make sure that I didn't disappoint by wasting the pine on something I wouldn't use. 
Starting back in January I started making wooden boxes using dovetails as joints.  Dovetails are supposed to be the strongest joint you can have. You can make dovetails using a router, but I wanted to try it the old fashion way using a dovetail saw.

A while back John also gave me  an orbital sander which uses discs for sandpaper.  I decided to make  boxes in order to hold the different grit sandpaper.

Orbital Sander

 Box Number 1

Here is the first box I made. Don't judge.  The number represents the girt sandpaper each box will be holding.

Box Number 2

This was probably the easiest one I made with the big pins.

Box Number 3

This box was going great until I made a mistake and routed the wrong side for the bottom of the box.  To fix it I did some inlay work and placed a piece of walnut inside the mistake and it came out pretty well.

Box Number 4

This isn't really a dovetail box.  It has finger joints that I made using my Uncle Bob's table saw.

Box Number 5

This was the last box I made.  It was easily my best.  The pins are narrow and the tails are different widths on purpose.

Here they are all in a row.  I'm thinking about building a little cabinet for them to sit in two rows of six, which means I'll need to make one more box.

Carpenter Carles' Workshop

One reason we bought the house was because of the room in the basement I would have for a woodworking shop.  We needed to put up a couple walls and create a laundry room to prevent dust floating toward the pristine clothes as they exited the washer and dryer.

The following is the condensed version along with the editing of bad words that were muttered by myself or dad along the way.

 
Step 1 was to tear down some shelves.

These monster shelves, HAVE GOT TO GO! because they were in the way.

Step 2 was to tear down a wall.  The lumber from both was reused in building the new walls

In the background is the wall.  You can see how I had four or five things plugged into the one extension cord.  According to the manufacturer it is NOT RECOMMENDED to do this.

Step 3 was to remove plumbing that was in the way.

Dad was invaluable in his help during all the steps of this process.

Step 4 was to build the frames bolting them to the floor.

What is Jen looking at?    Oh ya I still got it!

The walls after they were framed with studs in place.

Step 5 was to add a door.  We wanted to buy a door with a frame but the height of our wall wouldn't allow it so we re-purposed a closet door from my parent's house as a door for our workshop.  We had to add a doorknob and trimmed the bottom off the closet door in order to fit the shorter frame. 

Cutting the bottom where the door will be.

Door's done!

Step 6 was to move the wood shelf to a different location.  In order to do this we had to dismantle it and put it back up.  I forgot to take a picture of where it was before but basically it ran the length of the rock wall on the left side of this picture.

New location of wood storage shelf.

Step 7 was to run wire for the lights and outlets.

One of the junction boxes.  We used eight or nine of these bad boys. 

We had a friend from church come over and wire all the lights to the switches.  Thank God for friends!

One set of three track lights used.  This one is located over my bench.

This is where my my table saw, miter saw, planer, jointer and dust collector will plug in.  If only I had them right now.

Step 8 was to mount siding and paint the walls on the side of the laundry room and add trim.

Lining up the siding.

Finished on the laundry side.

 Step 9 was to mount peg board and my tools on it.
 

Step 10 Use it.

You may notice that the walls are not finished on the inside of the shop.  Right now I don't have plans to finish them.  I store my clamps on one of the cross supports and it helps keep them out of the way.  I have really enjoyed using the shop.  I imagine most wood workers feel like they don't ever have enough tools and I am no exception.  In my plans I have reserved spots for three more serious power tools that I can't save for quick enough.

I dedicate this post and shop to my late Uncle Bob Carle whose tools gave me a great beginning and are being used daily and to my dad Joe Carle whose help and wisdom helped this shop become a reality. The name of the workshop Carpenter Carles' Workshop is for the three Carles, Uncle Bob, Joe, and Ian.  And yes dad that does mean you can come over and use the shop whenever you want!

Our Two Weeks as Strippers

Our Definition of Stripping Wallpaper: Trying to remove paper that had been glued to the wall over 60 years ago with some adhesive that was applied with the intent of it never coming down.  For us it was a journey of trying to minimize tears, sweat, and bad words flying from our mouths.

The beginning of the first layer coming off.

We thought tearing down wallpaper would go quickly especially since Jen had taken the first layer off in about an hour with little difficulty at all.  In fact she thought she was finished tearing down all the wallpaper, until I kindly pointed out that there was still another layer.  This is when the real work began.

First you have to know that the wallpaper was coming off at the seams and there was a burn mark next to one of the outlets so the paper had to go.  We have a lot more wallpaper in the house, but we decided to start with the entry way, living room and dining room.

Wallpaper Removal Products
We tried three different products of which the first two didn't work.  The first one we tried was one you had to mix with water and then use a sponge to wet the walls wait 15 minutes and then scrape.

Duration using this product before giving up on it: 3 hours

DIF also known as waste of money.

 
The second product we used was one that was a gel formula that came in a spray bottle and it wasn't supposed to run down the wall.  We thought this would work better and it did, but still we didn't like it.  You were to spray it on and wait 15 to 20 minutes and then remove paper.

Duration using this product before giving up on it: 1/2 day

Better than the first formula we tried.

After the second formula didn't work.  We decided to try a different approach.  We went to The Home Depot and bought a steamer.

If there were a super hero that you could purchase to do wallpaper he or she might come in a box like this.

We found this to be the quickest way to get rid of paper.  It still wasn't easy, but we were no longer on the verge of crying, using bad words or **gasp** hiring someone to come do it for us.
 

Our very own 'Wailing Wall' - The first place tears flowed and scrapers flew.

Hidden Meanings
One driving force was finding words underneath the wallpaper.  One of the words just said paper.  It was a bit disappointing since I was looking for words of wisdom.

The "Pa" in paper peaking through.  Jen being great at  Wheel of Fortune guessed it right away.

Paper

As we were taking down the last little bit of wallpaper we uncovered a real note.  First they put a date on the wall,  which was March 12, 1975 and then they wrote a few words.  It is a bit hard to read though.  One part says, "Life is just like a beautiful ______"  couldn't make out that last word.  Then it continues, " 'just one ..." and we couldn't make out the rest.
 

All of the important words of wisdom are missing.

The Tiger or (the Kitten)
Before using the steamer we used a device called the Tiger which would make little holes in the wallpaper and let the steam break down the glue.  It worked well and if you ever decide you too need to tear down wallpaper you will want one of these.

Using the Tiger.  I had reservations about buying a product called a Tiger since I am not a big fan of Tigers especially ones named Truman.  We named ours kitten.

It is telling me how happy I will be when school is back and I will no longer be stripping.

Final Thoughts
So the wallpaper is off the wall.  The house now looks scarier than it did before we started.  My sister came over the other day and mentioned something about it looking like a crack house. I think in every house project there comes a point where I doubt myself and say, "Should I really be doing this?"  I think we are there right now.