Help with butchered old staircase
Discussion
Love what you are doing. It is a great shame so many do not appreciate the original workmanship or prefer to make a quick buck. I moved into a 1930s place that had woodchip on the ceiling (crack cover !), picture rails gone and putty repairs to the coving et cetera et cetera not really on your scale but plenty of feel good factor once put right.
You are probably lucky they did not put a house in your back garden.
Good luck.
Pip
You are probably lucky they did not put a house in your back garden.
Good luck.
Pip
Bit of an update as to where I am with the stairs I am still slowly going at it and making (some progress)
The blacksmith made me another 180deg rail section for the stairs running from the 1st floor to the old servants quarters upstairs, made from a template I provided. The problem with the steps is there are no straight edges/reference points, you just have to go with what looks 'right'. Luckily it fitted without too much drama.
With that fitted I also fitted the repaired balusters. These had previously been too short and the previous owners made up the height with a bit of copper tubing blathered in paint. the blacksmith brazed on new sections at the bottom.
Not looking too bad
With this in place me and my dad could then do the curved section of banister. This one turned out even better than the 1st one now we have got our eye in with it. Unfortunately no pictures as my phone went for a dip in the hot tub just after I finished the job!
And finally a watershed moment occurred the other weekend. I have finally stripped the stairs and baluster of all their paint, so no more f
king paint stripping!!! I estimate each step with 2 balusters in each took around 5-6 hours work, to strip and get to the state they are in today. There's 48 steps.....
Now looking much better:
Note above we had to put in a wooden newel post and remove the bullnose section of the bottom step on the top floor stairs. After removing the paint the bullnose was in a bad state and the cost or recreating what was downstairs was mentally expensive. Many of the stairs in Georgian houses running to the servants quarters were much less ornate. However we think we can still get this looking good.
I was 3 balusters short so have had some new ones (at an eye watering price) cast to complete the staircase. These will be going in soon.
On the main staircase on the ground floor there had been some sort of partition wall put in when it was flats. They simply hammered off the edge of the stairs which now look like this after the paint/plaster was removed.
Now my 'plan is to recreate the edges of these steps using resin, cast using a 2 piece silicon mould. I remember using this stuff in my 1st apprenticeship patternmaking however I only did 18 months before I had to leave for medical reasons. So I picked the best condition step upstairs that wasn't butchered. And made myself a boxed section:
And poured in the silicon mould mix:
Unfortunately I had cocked up my quantities and I need much more to make the top half of the mould. But the idea is to fit the 2 piece mould on to the end of the damaged steps and pour in resin to recreate the edge of the steps. I have no idea if this will work okay!!
Unfortunately that will have to wait for now as I'm away with work for 4 weeks, but hope to be recreating the stair ends, painting balusters and maybe, just maybe get the banister installed and varnished next time I'm home. That would be a great boost to my staircase fixing mojo!
Sorry for the long post, it's also a good record for me
The blacksmith made me another 180deg rail section for the stairs running from the 1st floor to the old servants quarters upstairs, made from a template I provided. The problem with the steps is there are no straight edges/reference points, you just have to go with what looks 'right'. Luckily it fitted without too much drama.
With that fitted I also fitted the repaired balusters. These had previously been too short and the previous owners made up the height with a bit of copper tubing blathered in paint. the blacksmith brazed on new sections at the bottom.
Not looking too bad
With this in place me and my dad could then do the curved section of banister. This one turned out even better than the 1st one now we have got our eye in with it. Unfortunately no pictures as my phone went for a dip in the hot tub just after I finished the job!
And finally a watershed moment occurred the other weekend. I have finally stripped the stairs and baluster of all their paint, so no more f
king paint stripping!!! I estimate each step with 2 balusters in each took around 5-6 hours work, to strip and get to the state they are in today. There's 48 steps.....Now looking much better:
Note above we had to put in a wooden newel post and remove the bullnose section of the bottom step on the top floor stairs. After removing the paint the bullnose was in a bad state and the cost or recreating what was downstairs was mentally expensive. Many of the stairs in Georgian houses running to the servants quarters were much less ornate. However we think we can still get this looking good.
I was 3 balusters short so have had some new ones (at an eye watering price) cast to complete the staircase. These will be going in soon.
On the main staircase on the ground floor there had been some sort of partition wall put in when it was flats. They simply hammered off the edge of the stairs which now look like this after the paint/plaster was removed.
Now my 'plan is to recreate the edges of these steps using resin, cast using a 2 piece silicon mould. I remember using this stuff in my 1st apprenticeship patternmaking however I only did 18 months before I had to leave for medical reasons. So I picked the best condition step upstairs that wasn't butchered. And made myself a boxed section:
And poured in the silicon mould mix:
Unfortunately I had cocked up my quantities and I need much more to make the top half of the mould. But the idea is to fit the 2 piece mould on to the end of the damaged steps and pour in resin to recreate the edge of the steps. I have no idea if this will work okay!!
Unfortunately that will have to wait for now as I'm away with work for 4 weeks, but hope to be recreating the stair ends, painting balusters and maybe, just maybe get the banister installed and varnished next time I'm home. That would be a great boost to my staircase fixing mojo!
Sorry for the long post, it's also a good record for me
Edited by Uggers on Tuesday 15th August 20:20
Edited by Uggers on Tuesday 15th August 20:29
We bought a 3 story 1890 house in Harrogate that had been divided into 3 flats. The stairs went up 3 floors with half landings. Every spindle had been shaved when they boxed in the stair case. The only bits we had were the painted hand rail and most of the ground floor newel post.
We "only" needed 56 replacement spindles and the services of a wonderful french polisher.
It was the most satisfying project we did in the house and made us smile every time we walked in through the front door. It defined the house.
Well done, it will be superb!
P.s. Boils my blood all the people who vandalise a beautiful house because they are lazy / ignorant.
We "only" needed 56 replacement spindles and the services of a wonderful french polisher.
It was the most satisfying project we did in the house and made us smile every time we walked in through the front door. It defined the house.
Well done, it will be superb!
P.s. Boils my blood all the people who vandalise a beautiful house because they are lazy / ignorant.
Edited by gf15 on Sunday 11th June 22:21
ta Thanks everyone, got to keep the end game in mind when doing this!
Ouch at the rate I had to pay for my spindles that would have been nearly £6k in cast iron baluster!
It boils my piss too, just no need for so little extra effort if any at all. If it had been a clean cut with a Stihl saw they could have kept the cleanly cut offcuts and I may have been able to do something with them without all this messing about. I'm optimistic my resin idea will work.
ali_kat said:
Wow!!!
I'm busy stripping paint off our wooden staircase, I feel your pain; paint stripper has changed since I last used it
I've done some soul destroying jobs but this is by far the worst job I've ever done. I won't be doing it again!I'm busy stripping paint off our wooden staircase, I feel your pain; paint stripper has changed since I last used it
Jonesy23 said:
The good stuff is still out there if you look in the right places, its also cheaper than the new rubbish. Look for Synstryp or just dichloromethane.
I used Klingstrip bit of a nightmare clearing it up afterwards but did the job! Also £10 for 2.5lgf15 said:
We "only" needed 56 replacement spindles and the services of a wonderful french polisher.
It was the most satisfying project we did in the house and made us smile every time we walked in through the front door. It defined the house.
Well done, it will be superb!
P.s. Boils my blood all the people who vandalise a beautiful house because they are lazy / ignorant.
Thanks! It was the most satisfying project we did in the house and made us smile every time we walked in through the front door. It defined the house.
Well done, it will be superb!
P.s. Boils my blood all the people who vandalise a beautiful house because they are lazy / ignorant.
Ouch at the rate I had to pay for my spindles that would have been nearly £6k in cast iron baluster!
It boils my piss too, just no need for so little extra effort if any at all. If it had been a clean cut with a Stihl saw they could have kept the cleanly cut offcuts and I may have been able to do something with them without all this messing about. I'm optimistic my resin idea will work.
0a said:
Good work. When it's done you will have far more satisfaction than someone who just shelled out the tens of £ks up front to get someone else to do it all in one go, and a better story for the house!
Cheers! I keep telling myself it will be worth it, even doing it myself the material costs have slowly added up. Dread to think how much it may have cost paying a company to do it!
dmsims said:
Andehh said:
Any updates OP? Lovely project.
Apart from the huge update he posted 8 days ago ???
Uggers said:
I'm working away from home for the next 3 weeks but hope to have an update on how my resin casting plan worked out then.
I promise to get pictures even if it's a disaster!
I promise to get pictures even if it's a disaster!
I promised an update a while back. Unfortunately Photobucket threw a spanner in the works for a rather excessive demand of money to host pictures. I'd have been okay maybe up to £100 for the year, but £300+ seems excessive to me.
With that in mind, I have spent ages trying to repair this thread as best I can. There may be some loss of continuity and the photo's do seem to be quite big as they are not automatically resized. Now using Imgur, until they decide to demand an excessive amount of money.
The mould is complete. I made the mistake of removing the wooden moulding box, should have kept it for support as the silicon by itself is not rigid enough to hold straight when moulding. So i spent ages re supporting the mould with a new box section.
Thought to hell with it and try and fix the worst step 1st.
Was originally like this:
With the mould fixed in position I then poured my 1st cast. I didn't realise quite how fast it begins to set. Maybe 2mins max, from the moment the 2 parts of the casting resin are mixed together. It came out like this:
There is some blending to do, but my new air driven belt sander should make it fairly easy work, but reasonably happy with that as a 1st attempt. The casting resin is rock hard and bonds very well with the stone. A bonus of moulding another step is that the texture of the stone is recreated in the cast.
I then set about the bottom staircase which was originally like this:
I now have edges to my steps:
They need some minor tweaks but on the whole, once blended and painted I reckon they should look okay!
With that in mind, I have spent ages trying to repair this thread as best I can. There may be some loss of continuity and the photo's do seem to be quite big as they are not automatically resized. Now using Imgur, until they decide to demand an excessive amount of money.
The mould is complete. I made the mistake of removing the wooden moulding box, should have kept it for support as the silicon by itself is not rigid enough to hold straight when moulding. So i spent ages re supporting the mould with a new box section.
Thought to hell with it and try and fix the worst step 1st.
Was originally like this:
With the mould fixed in position I then poured my 1st cast. I didn't realise quite how fast it begins to set. Maybe 2mins max, from the moment the 2 parts of the casting resin are mixed together. It came out like this:
There is some blending to do, but my new air driven belt sander should make it fairly easy work, but reasonably happy with that as a 1st attempt. The casting resin is rock hard and bonds very well with the stone. A bonus of moulding another step is that the texture of the stone is recreated in the cast.
I then set about the bottom staircase which was originally like this:
I now have edges to my steps:
They need some minor tweaks but on the whole, once blended and painted I reckon they should look okay!
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