More blasting

Little enough has been happening over the Christmas holidays, but any time I've had has been invested in more sandblasting. I re-blasted the stone wall in the living room after chipping out old morter, and it's now much better (sorry, no photo yet), but the biggest job has been blasting as much oak as I could in the second floor, including the old wooden attic stairs.

Lessons learned when using a sandblaster on wood: the nut shells are great, but expensive. Very fine sand (0.06 - 0.3mm) does a great job and doesn't damage the wood, especially if the flow is well controlled. In fact, in some cases this was too gentle, as smoke-stained oak is like iron. Not-so-fine sand (up to 0.8mm) is ok for rough cleaning, but the finish leaves a lot to be desired, and I wouldn't put it near soft or damaged wood. Final lesson learned, don't bother trying to recycle the blast material unless you are blasting only wood, with no chance of other matter like clay dust getting mixed in. If it does, it goes Poof!, and you can't see a damn thing.

Preparation! With new windows in, I sealed every work area.

Safety first!

And now the before and after shots (well, I'd already done the stairs when the before this was taken)!

2nd floor, west staircase, before

And after the wall beams were blasted with fine sand.

Ceiling of same area before (note boards will be plastered later).

And after.

Looking closely at the finish, it's a bit rough in spots, but a buff with the brush sander will give a nice finish.

Finish a bit rough.

Last Thursday, Lutz and I also fitted an old oak post in the kitchen. This was long-awaited, and the chance finding of a suitable post (24x24cm by 2.1m high) in a neighbour's woodpile was a good sign. It needed little adjustment, although jacking up the beam spanning the kitchen was no easy task.

Waiting for the jack.

Job done.

 Think that needs a bit of sandblasting...