New Old Moldings

This weekends work actually started last Monday after returning home. We’re about ready to install the moldings in the front bedroom. But, where does one find 85 year old molding profiles? There are some things I’m happy to upgrade throughout the house, but the doors and moldings I’d prefer to keep as original as possible. Since the door and window molding profile is no longer available, I opted to make it myself.

Custom Molding Knife

To do so, I need a knife cutter for my molder. Which brings us back to Monday. As soon as I got home and got unloaded, I took a piece of the original door casing to a local grinding company that also makes molding knives. I sweet talked him to see about getting the knife made ASAP and he seemed willing to oblige even though he was slammed with work. Thursday evening he called and said it was ready to pick up. Awesome!

Sawmilled lumber

I was able to pick up the knife on Friday and soon after got started milling the boards. The lumber I’m going to use is from a log that I cut on my sawmill about 2 years ago. It was a beautiful slash pine log with straight grain and very few knots. I’ve been letting the cut boards air dry and it’s ready to be used. I’ve been waiting for the right project for this log and this seems like a great use for it. These pictures are back from 2018.

Making Molding

The process is overall pretty simple – it’s just a lot of hard work with big boards. To make molding from the rough sawn boards, I’ll need to plane it flat on 2 faces, cut a straight edge on one of the edges, cut the boards to width, and then run them through the molder. Easy peasy. Here’s some pictures and a video of the molding making process. I finished the molding late Saturday evening and we loaded up and headed up to the house.

The bees left!

We pulled up to the house Saturday evening and glanced at the beehive. Something’s not right. There’s barely any activity. I suited up and checked things out. They absconded. Booooo!!! The hive was filled with hive beetle maggots. Gross. And that’s not good.

New old door

Sunday morning I sanded out the drywall patch over the bathroom door while Oceana painted the block wall that she primed last weekend. After the drywall it was time to relocate the bedroom door. The door that I’m going to use was hinged the wrong way, so I figured it would be easier to make a new jamb and rehinge the door slab than try and reuse the existing jamb. I made a new jamb and mortised out for the hinges. Once the door was hanging, I could install the casing on that door and then on the sliding door.

Oceana found the bees!

As I’m working on the casing, Oceana comes around the side of the house and excitedly says: “Guess what? I found the bees!”. We went around back of the house where she showed me a branch that had a massive ball of bees on it. Awesome! Tonight once all the foragers are back we’ll gather the colony back up. Until then, we’ll need to clean and sanitize the hive boxes. With the amount of hive beetle maggots in the box, there’s tiny eggs everywhere. We don’t want the hive beetles to spread again so we bleached all of the parts and pieces and set them out in the sun to dry.

More moldings

Back to the moldings. After the casing on the doors, I installed the moldings on the windows. I made a single continuous window sill since the windows are so close together. I think this looks much nicer this way. Last up was the baseboard. I was able to cut the profile of the baseboard on the table saw since it’s a simple profile. Oceana helped me feed the boards through the saw since they’re 16′ long. With the profile cut, I got the baseboards installed throughout the bedroom. Enough for one day.

The bees left, again.

As I was cleaning up the tools, Oceana came and said “I’ve got bad news.” “Uh oh, what is it?” I replied. She said “the bees are gone!” We went back to the branch and sure enough, they had swarmed again and they were gone. Boooo!!!!

Trim Prep

Monday morning Oceana got on sanding the new moldings and filling the nail holes. Once that was done, she primed all of the raw wood. It’s really starting to look like a room! I started off the morning spraying termite spray throughout the shop. I found a few live ones a few weeks ago and wanted to nip it in the bud. The shop walls all need rebuilt so I’m not worried about any damage but I don’t want them spreading. The spray has the added benefit of killing off all sorts of other critters as well as termites so I’ll likely have a shop full of dead insects when we come back. Goodbye cockroaches.

Pole Saw – Thanks Bud.

After treating the shop for termites, it was time to play with a pole saw. Bud was nice enough to drop off two different pole saws for me to test out. One was a battery powered Stihl saw which I hadn’t used before. I was just going to try it out. You know, a quick test. I started by trimming some of the low hanging branches on the live oak by the lake. Well, two hours of cutting later, it was time to be done. So much for a quick test! There’s still more to do, but it was enough for today. And as for the battery powered Stihl pole saw – two thumbs up. I’m thoroughly impressed. Thanks for letting me use it Bud.

Come back bees

Before we took off for the day, I decided to set up the hive box as a swarm trap. I figured it couldn’t hurt. Maybe they’ll come back. Maybe. We’re headed home to process more mangoes. We’re at peak harvest season right now and we’ve escalated to collecting mangoes in a wheelbarrow. It’s getting a little nuts but that’s just how we like it! I also stopped off on the way home to pick up another piece of equipment for the shop. I’m a fan of old tools (they’re heavier built and easier to service) and I had never seen a drum sander like this before. The price was right so I loaded it up. Have a great week everyone.