wood concrete tools effort
building materials
george amabile
something I learned repairing a storm door
1 It’s all wrong – the green, lizard-skin paint, the cracked, rain warped panel the rust-spotted mail drop, face plate latch bolt and knob, the way it blocks out the sun and the view. If I took it to Windsor Plywood they would use it as a template and cut us a new one with a window, but the wood is still good and I see how I can do it myself with a little thought , a little patience: remove the rusted hardware, strip it, sand away the last clots of paint , brush on fresh Varathane that soaks into red oak and clarifies the grain , replace latches, doorknobs, hinges and the mail drop with new ones in satin chrome, drill a half inch hole, cut the entire upper panel out with the skill saw, fire up the router blade and spin-blast a clean rabbet groove around the frame where a window pane will admit the sun and the view.
2 Remove the glass from its paper wrap; spray it with Windex and wipe it clean. Squeeze a worm of putty from the tube and press it into the rabbeted groove of the cut out frame, lay in the glass pane and secure it with red-oak molding. As I hammer the last finishing nail a nearly invisible white streak runs down the glass, branches and splits like a nerve system of fracture lines. 3 Pry off the moulding; don’t flinch at the rasp of steel against glass, let the pieces fall to the floor. You won’t make that mistake again, but what you’ve learned from this will not improve your intelligence. Maybe there will always be too many things to keep in mind before each rise and fall of the hammer, each new stroke of the brush. But even when you get it right on the second or third try, there is that one flaw you missed and won’t discover till later, having a drink with friends, and that’s when you understand what will always be true, this neat thing you have made carries your characteristic signature of patient, skilled attention, but also that brush-hair locked in Varathane.
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