Repair Dry Rot: Expert Tips and Tricks

Ron:

You know sometimes it may just seem easier to replace something that’s a little tattered and worn.  Well me, I guess I’m just a restorer at heart.  I feel really good about giving new life to something that’s been around for a while.

Ron:

Well I’ve got a bit of a problem here, we’ve got some pretty serious rot.  So I going to go ahead and repair these.  This one is pretty deep, the damage goes fairly deeply in here and some of this wood in here is still on the soft side.  I’ve taken out a lot most of the crumbly stuff but I don t think I want to tear too much of it out there.  I'm going to do what’s called consolidate the wood that’s left right here.  And all that means is that I'm going to put some of this liquid, it’s not really an epoxy, but you can think of it as that.  Its water thin and it soaks into the wood, and it turns the soft partially decayed wood here hard again.  The consolidate will dry in about two hours.  Now, I’ll begin using small pieces of material to build a form around the damaged area.  This is just cardboard here, I’m going to spray some lubricant on the back and it’s just going to allow the filler to release from this.  I’m going to lay this right here.  I’m going to take some duct tape.  What I’m trying to do here is cover a couple of the sides  on this void so that the filler when I put it in just ooze out.  The filler I’ve chosen for this job – a poly resin – dries quickly and is extremely durable…especially outside.  It’s really a wonderful material for doing home repairs.  It’s relatively inexpensive and I like it because it’s not only easy to use  but it dries very fast.  Now this is the hardener.  The more of this I put in, the faster this is going to get hard.  Now just mix that right up and I'm  just going to start packing this in, now there’s a hole just up in here so I’m going to push that back up in the hole until that’s well filled.  That’s actually starting to harden already.  See how that’s, its hard to tell now, but another couple minutes, I can feel it.  It’s kind of like dried chewing gum.  See it’s getting a little bit rubbery.

Ron:

Now this has been about ten minutes.  As you can see, it’s hard but it’s still a little bit rubbery.  Now this is exactly where I want it to be here because when it’s in this stage I can clean up the excess really easily.  Yeah, see that popped off.  See that left us with a nice fill right in here, so there won’t be much clean up to do with that.  Then we’ll pop this one off too.  Let me give that a cut, take off the tape.  This is just a knife; you see how rubbery this is right now.  Now you can cut away all the excess. 

Ron:

I’m getting this at just the right time when it’s still rubbery, this stuff gets really hard.  Now I cut out some of this excess here, I just made a cut here.  I’m going to get in here and just follow this profile.  So I have a little more sanding to do on the top and back, but not much.  And this is ready for priming and painting.  

Ron:

Now this one I’m going to repair a little bit differently.  I could fill this up but I think because of the way this is all broken out here, I’d be better off replacing it with a piece of wood.  I’ll put that right on here.  Now what I’m doing here is I’m cutting a patch first.  Then I’m going to trace the outline of the patch onto the shutter and I’m actually going to cut this out. 

Ron:

My chisels could be a little sharper.  I could take a day off and just do chisel sharpening here.  I’m going to go ahead and glue this in now.  This is polyurethane glue, great stuff for outdoor use.  Since I have this wonderful tool, I’m going to use it.  This is a one handed face frame clamp.  Now it applies pressure right down here it kind of pinches, and at the same time it drives this screw down pushing that wedge down into the opening.  Well that patch turned out very nicely, I sanded it off flush here with the surface of the shutter.  Now all I’ve got to do is apply some paint and it will blend right in.  Well there’s the patch we made with the polyester resin.  It’s all been sanded smooth; now watch its just going to disappear as I lay the paint on here.  It’s just about good as new, or as I like to say good as old.

Ron:

Oh sure, I could have bought a new shutter, but you know there’s something that gives me satisfaction about restoring something old.  Maybe its character or patina or whatever you want to call it.  And in this case you would never know there was a problem up there.