external wood repair – Joinery Shop

Edwardian garage repairs near Maidenhead: Part 2

robert beesley — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 10:21:29 +0000

Back in Maidenhead, having given ourselves a sound backing for the repairs to the doors themselves, we set about making new linings where the originals were too damaged to keep or a minor repair would have been inadequate. The linings were made from 10-inch planks of solid Accoya, fitted and squared up to the doors for a perfect fit.

All that remained to be done was replace the decorative finishes for the doors which in true Edwardian style consisted of architraves with a fairly wide ogee profile. We gave some very careful consideration to the choice of material for the architraves and after a cup of tea and a head scratch followed by some test cuts, we opted to make them from joinery standard pine and have them pressure treated. Once coated up with a long-life paint and assuming the paintwork is maintained to a reasonable standard, they should have a similar service life to the Accoya linings they are fixed to.

The last job was to install the architraves with nice, tight mitres, using the right weather resistant materials to ensure the most vulnerable areas of the design will last long into the future.

Edwardian garage repairs near Maidenhead: Part 1

robert beesley — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 19:10:40 +0000

These double garages a built using early elements of the modern techniques we use today, such as steel lintels with timber packing in the web. You can learn a great deal about the longevity of these methods and the materials used from a building like this. We want to know how a building will perform and what condition it will be in 10, 20 or even 100 years.

The first stage of repairs here was to focus on the small, simple repairs to part of the door lining, before moving onto the more structural elements of the construction.

We could then turn our attention to the rotten packing inside the web of the steel lintel. This was done the same way it would be done today on a new build, with the timber driven into the web of the steel to provide fixing points for a finish covering. We chose to change the orientation of the packing: firstly, to give more options for fixing but also to avoid the need to forcibly drive the timber into the web and risk disturbing the masonry.

Grade 2 listed Gate near Gerrards Cross: Part 1

robert beesley — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 19:20:51 +0000

Belonging to the gatehouse of a former manor, this gate had been incorporated into the driveway of the gatehouse when the manor was divided up and sold off. The gate itself retained its own separate grade 2 listing which might go some way towards explaining the condition the new owners found it in.

The first step was to work out what of the original gate could be retained. Unfortunately, the remaining original timber was in such poor condition that we couldn’t reuse any of it, but with the help of some old photographs, we were able to produce drawings for a new gate. We managed to retain the forged strap hinges, which meant minimum disturbance to the Red Rubber brick piers.