Well, when I say quick…. I mean a few days work!!!
The old oak beam above what will become main entrance needs to be either restored or replaced. On inspection it looked like we could just remove all the old decayed wood (which was mainly the softwood) and reuse it. The wall is supported by a large stone lintel, so this beam doesn’t any major loads and we can give it a real good trim!
So with a hatchet I spent a few hours trimming off all the weak, decayed and crumbling wood from the surface of the beam, until I got down to the solid hard wood.
And then for the rest of the day with my planer and sander I reshaped the beam. I basically worked it back until there was just clean hard wood left.
And finally and couple of coats of Xylophene, a wickedly toxic wood treatment used here in France. (As you can see from the photos I did this outside)
Lifted it in place with my block and tackle and rebuilt the surrounding wall…
Here’s the finished beam back in place looking a lot better than it did …. now on with the stairs (that’s what the pieces of wood on the wall are for!)
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