Monthly Archives: May 2013

May 14, 2013

Masonic Centre Carved Lettering

Every year for the last 13 years I have been incise carving the new names and dates of the current masters to their appropriate lodge boards. Throughout this whole time I have been dealing with the steward Jack and his wife Claire. During my last visit in April Jack informed me that both of them are retiring. It has been an absolute pleasure working with Jack and his wife Claire and they have always been very accommodating with what I require to carry out the carving on site.   I hope they both have a fulfilled and happy retirement. Best wishes for the future Mark

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May 4, 2013

Restoration Joinery

These  pair of seventy year old solid English oak gates were in need of some sympathetic restoration to the bottom rails and styles .   Wet rot had seriously damaged the bottom rails and to such an extent had caused structural failure to the mortise and tenon joints at the bottom of the styles. I was left with no choice but to  completely replace the bottom rails with air dried oak and then scarf  joint new sections onto the ends of the styles with hidden Oak pins used to strengthen the joints .   New mortise and tenons were made exactly how the old ones were formed using oak dowels that were draw bored to pull up the shoulders of the tenons.     The ends of the tongue and groove boarding had to re-fixed with stainless steel screws that had been counterbored first and Oak pellets inserted over the top of the screws and cleaned off flush. The gates were extremely well made seventy years ago and all the joinery restoration work I carried out was done using the same traditional methods. The gates are constructed from 60mm thick solid English Oak and are over 6ft high and wide each gate which makes them immensely heavy […]

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