Fixin' The Deck Part 17

The last post was focused on preparations for re-installing the perimeter railings, most of which was accomplished right after new year. While all that work was going on I was also looking into a suitable coating to apply to the deck and I decided to go with a "liquid membrane" from Semco. It's a big commitment, so I made a small mockup of the deck from some scrap boards and ordered a pint of the coating:

The material is mid-gray when wet, but dries "slate brown."

 

One half of the mockup got two coats, and then the whole thing was left out on the deck for two weeks while it was mostly raining.

Soon after that we made the decision to go with the Semco product and I ordered a five (5) gallon bucket. I wasn't sure whether to "paint" the deck surface first or install the railings. Applying the coating would be easier without railings to work around and/or splash, but then I would be forced to spend ages walking all over the new surface while I rebuild the railings. The compromise was to apply the coating to a strip about three feet wide at the perimeter. The coating is very similar to the original color of the deck boards:

The perimeter of the deck has moved slightly, but the railings will be going back in (hopefully) the original positions - I took detailed measurements and marked the components as they were dismantled. The one post that we did not remove holds up the roof above the rear of the deck. The sleeve cannot be slid over this post either; it has to be glued and pinned in place: 

I used an empty post sleeve and the railing parts to position the second post which took a little bit of finagling. I also figured out the spot for the post at the front left corner of the deck:

Once I was happy with both locations, I made a template out of cardboard which fits over the post sleeve. The sleeve has a square 5" x 5" footprint and is designed to fit over a (nominal) 4" x 4" timber post:

The second part of the template is a 5" square piece of plywood with a 1/8" hole drilled at the center. When placed together, the center point of the post may be determined accurately.

I put screws at the center of both posts and used an old-fashioned string line and a tape measure to locate the centers of all the intermediate posts; it was too sunny to use the laser.

I used the same method for the other long side of the deck and the short sections of railings at the stairs and next to the exterior doors. Time to drill some holes! After removing each placement screw, I bored a 5/8" hole through the plastic deck board with a spade bit. This hole was extended into the framing/blocking below about another inch or so with a regular 1/2 inch drill bit:

It took a couple of goes to establish my post bracket installation protocol. It goes like this:

1. Center the bracket over the hole in the deck, center the cardboard template around the bracket, and tape in place - the hole in the bracket is not circular, which can be helpful in the event that hole(s) are bored off-line.

2. Apply a liberal amount of caulk to the underside of the bracket:

3. Do the same with the bearing plate:

4. Install a 5/8" wide and 5-1/2 long lag bolt and crank down. The caulk under the bracket makes it slide around when the bolt is tightened; the cardboard template helps re-locate the precise position. Additional caulk is then applied around the base of the bracket, around the bearing plate and over the bolt head:

The post bracket comes with a cap which snaps over the bearing plate and provides a solid foundation for the timber post. The cap is designed to let water out so does not need to be caulked. 

All brackets set:

All the timber posts were replaced with PT lumber and are mounted to the brackets with twelve (12) wood screws.:

First section of railings re-installed: 

I worked my way to the front left corner and halfway across the driveway side of the deck. I am deliberately not installing the rest of the railings just yet. Stay tuned to find out why!

Fixin' The Deck Part 16

Good grief, it's almost the end of January! Whatever I've been doing for the last few weeks, it has not involved writing in this blog! At the start of the year, it was raining, but fortunately the majority of the preparation for re-installation the deck railings was accomplished inside. The first item on the agenda was picking through the old hardware:

Most of the post brackets came out ok after going over with wire wheel, but I will have to buy a couple of replacements; a post anchoring set is $30 bucks and I need thirteen (13), so it was well worth cleaning up the ones I can reuse.

Very few of the L-brackets were salvageable, so I ordered replacements and I will also be getting new lag bolts. 

This is what the pile of railing components looks like after eighteen months of sitting in the back yard. I should have covered the parts with a tarp, but instead they have been covered with decomposing leaves for most of that time and have the stains to prove it.

It was still raining at this point, but I did my best to ignore it, set up the pressure washer, and worked my way through all the railing components. Pressure washing in the rain isn't much worse than doing it on a dry day because I always manage to hose myself down.

Pressure washing was a big help, but I wasn't able to remove the worse stains, so I set up my paint both in the backyard and worked my way through the mountain of parts.

Stains like this....

.....were essentially eliminated with Rust-oleum gloss enamel and everything looks way better:

The gutters and the gates were pressure washed and painted after it stopped raining:

Next up: stucco repair. I had to bust out some of the stucco outside the dining room to get the old deck boards out, and it has never been repaired. There are a few other places where the stucco has been damaged including next to the garage where I removed an obsolete hose bib, but this is the big one. To start with I removed all the loose stucco and peeled back the good material a couple more inches to expose the framing. I cut out the remaining bits of original wire mesh and patched the tar paper behind the stucco. I then installed a piece of much finer mesh over the tar paper and took the photo below:

The next photo was taken after the first coat of replacement stucco has been applied. I'm not the best at masonry so I studied on youtube ahead of time. I am using a 3/4 in. piece of scrap wood to ensure there is straight gap between the lower edge of the stucco and the aluminum flashing:

The second or "textured" coat is applied before the initial round of stucco has completely cured:

After complete curing and painting with primer. It would have been much more difficult to make this repair with the deck enclosure installed. 

To be continued....

'67 F250 The Replica

I've restored or customized a few old matchbox cars in the past. None of them were anything special, and I never felt the need to add them to this blog. Until....a mate from BAMA gave me the truck below, which has been in his family for a long time. It was gifted to me since it is based on the exact model of Ford truck I own, with the suggestion that I use it to make a replica. This was a challenge I had to take on!

This is a decent example of Lesney Matchbox No 50C, Ford Kennel Truck in green with a green tinted windshield, which was modelled on Ford's 1967 F-series: 

The detail in the diecast model extends to the appropriate FORD logo on the tailgate:

The photo below shows how this toy was originally presented; the four plastic dogs and the canopy are long gone from my example.

My version has also lost both headlights and a chunk of the radiator grille:

Let's see what I can do with it! The first step is to drill out the rivet-style fasteners that hold the base plate to the body. I used a 1/4-inch drill bit for this operation. You want to drill away the absolute minimum amount of metal.

The windshield is attached to the underside of the roof with another stud which has to be removed the same way. This time extra care must be taken to just drill away metal; drilling into the plastic windshield will damage or destroy it.

The next bit requires some finesse. The two posts which no longer secure the base plate must be drilled out and tapped to accept 2-56 cap head fasteners, where 2 is the standard drill size and the bolt has 56 threads per inch. The closest metric size is probably M1. The tiny bolts which thread into these holes will secure the base plate when it is time to put the truck back together. Once the threads are cut, I leave the fasteners installed until I'm ready for reassembly. As well as preventing any wear, this stops the threads from being filled with paint.

Time to remove the original paint:

I'm using Aircraft paint remover from Klean-Strip; this is an older can from when the product contained methylene chloride (aka as DiChloroMethane, DCM or CH₂Cl₂) which is a toxic carcinogen and perfect for this application.

As I mentioned above, I'm converting this kennel truck to a replica of the F250 I own, so there is one feature I need to modify: the four-part divider in the bed needs to go:

The bulk of the excess material was cut away with metal shears:

Almost everything else was removed with the Dremel, and then I finished up with some hand sanding: 

My truck does not have a circular hole in the middle of the bed. I cut a small piece of galvanized steel from a bit of roof flashing...

....and used super glue to stick it below the bed:

Added some automotive body filler:

This is part way through the sanding process:

Sanding complete:

Applied a coat of gray Tamiya fine surface primer:

Ok, so that was the easy bit; I've done similar a number of times. The next step will be the first time I've attempted a two-tone paint job on this scale. I started by mixing up plenty of sort-of primrose/mustard yellow paint. I'm using Tamiya flat white (XF-2) and clear yellow (X-24) and the proprietary thinner, which is pretty much expensive distilled water.

It has been a few years since I used my airbrush, but I dug it out and it seemed to work fine:

After applying several coats of yellow I left the paint to cure for over a week - I was out of town, so it was easy to keep away. The next step is masking - I used some 1/16" wide tape for delineating between yellow and brown sections, and then all the bits I wanted to remain yellow were covered with wider pieces of tape:

Then another coat of yellow paint was applied - the idea is that there is always some paint bleed when using tape, and I want that bleed-over to be yellow.

The only brown Tamiya paint I have is X64 which was too dark. I added a cocktail of lighter colors to get the hue I was looking for, and then I applied a couple of coats with the airbrush. The problem with this type of "paint job" is that you end up with quite a thick layer of paint which obscures some of the finer details - Matchbox castings were well known for being extremely detailed.

I wanted to leave the brown paint for a few days to ensure it was fully cured. While I was waiting, I did a bit of work on the paint station. It wasn't quite as untidy as it looks in the photo below because I haven't mixed paint in ages, but it has never been the most comfortable workspace. This piece of furniture is the lower section of what was a huge cabinet for a massive CRT TV - i.e. the sort of television set that even all nine combined members of the Who and the Rolling Stones couldn't manage to throw out of a hotel room window. 

Obviously, I've never owned such an obnoxious piece of consumer electronics, but I did allow the previous owner of my house to leave his TV cabinet behind - it was mostly solid oak, and I've made loads of things out of the upper part. My main complaint is that the paint station is too low to stand up at, and too awkward to sit in front of. 

The first step of my "remodel" was to convert the cabinet at the left side to an open space where I can sit in a chair and get my knees under the tabletop. This required some cutting and strengthening and I had to build a central support which wasn't previously needed:

I installed a couple of parts cabinets that used to be in my garage, and pin-nailed together some shelves in the alcove between them:

After transferring all related tools, paint, parts and whatnot:

Next step: installing an outlet at this side of the partition so I can plug in my work light and use my Dremel without extension cords etc.

I'm very fortunate to have a huge 'shop space, but it is a multi-use faciality where a lot of dust is created. In spite of a decent vacuum-powered dust extraction system, anything that is not used regularly ends up getting coated. I don't really want the paint station to gather dust, so to speak, so I made an overelaborate screen from a piece of pine and some scrap plywood. This will hopefully keep dust off the paint and so on when it's not being used. 

After that was all done it was time to get back to work. I began by masking off everything except the truck bed. This round of tape was almost all applied to pre-existing tape. There is very little direct tape-to-brown-paint. Some parts of the model were wrapped with post-it notes which were then covered with tape to eliminate contact with the paintwork.

Back into the paint booth:

I'm using some rubberized coating for the truck bed which I found in the garage. I think it was left over from the Mustang wheel wells.

Post application:

The bedliner was allowed to cure overnight and then all the masking was removed and the chassis was treated to several coats of acrylic clear, which was applied with a rattle can. I did not bother with color sanding!

The wheelbase was in great shape. I gave it a very light coat of semi-gloss black paint, and I painted the wheels in situ since there was no need to replace the axels. The green-tinted windshield was also in good condition and just required some polishing.

The grille was badly worn (left below). Fortunately, I was able to source a NOS replacement (right below).

The grille on my F250 is a modern gray re-pro and I think the chrome bumper has also been replaced since 1967. The driver side fender and fender apron have definitely been replaced so it would make sense...I spray painted the replacement white grille/bumper with some Eastwood brake grey, and then hand painted Tamiya X-11 chrome gray onto the bumper.:

The windshield and grille are press-fitted at the factory, which cannot be easily replicated, so I secured these parts to the chassis with super glue. After complete re-assembly:

Below is how the "original" F250 looks on a nice day after being washed. It is worth noting that when it left the factory the truck was white with a beige interior!