Restoring the exterior of a cedar cabin using three Festool Sanders

Looking good, Frank! Now, by next year it'll be time to start over, re-doing the first side... :eek:

Oh yeah, and WELCOME BACK! We missed you all Summer.
 
Congrats on making it all the way around the cabin, Frank. :thumb:

And good to see you back. Been wondering when you'd be dropping back in. :wave:
 
The cabin looks like new again! :thumb:

Sure is good to have REAL WOOD to be able to sand it back.

Nice to see you again, I thought maybe you had called the whole city thing quits and moved up to the cabin for good :D :wave:
 
Frank
That is one outstanding looking cabin. As Stu said looks new!. And I must say that you must work fast because it sounds as if your times were well below what I would expect.

I don't remember the brand but I picked up a carbide scrapper from Europe or Scandiniva that works wonders a couple of years back. Makes the basically sheet metal scrapers I had look and work like toys...
Garry
 
Gary, you are the first person to say that the job took less time than they expected. Most folks seem to think that I took far too long on the job.

I thank everyone who welcomed me back to Family Woodworking. Maybe next year, I will have satelite internet at Pellow's Camp :D (but I doubt it -the cost would likely be prohibative :eek:).
 
Frank,

Just curious, What is it about the festool sanders that make them work better?

The dust collection?
More aggressive?

The cabin looks awesome. What an idyllic retreat.
 
...Maybe next year, I will have satelite internet at Pellow's Camp :D (but I doubt it -the cost would likely be prohibative :eek:).

Wouldn't that negate the whole point of being there??:D I'm warning you Frank - if you install web access I won't come and visit (which is probably a good reason to do it anyway!!:D)

Real glad to see you back Frank:thumb:
 
Aside from the fact that I am envious of your cabin. I can feel for you on your tasks, I reciently finished re-doing my wood fence. That was a chore and I assume your job is even more trouble. I have a couple of ROS and if you would will a week to an old fisherman.... I'll even provide the paper.

On that thought... I have become a believer in the Carbide Scraper. A friend has been re-doing his 1900 house and had a Carbide scraper that he preached the praises about it. As cheap as he is the extra money for the carbide got me to thinking... Well, I had a task and so I bought one... Gee what a difference!!! I'm noot kidding, Get one and scrape first before you spend all that sanding time.. I use the scraper for a host of tasks, Clean the ridge left by the nicks in my planer, scrape the dried glue from my too lazy to clean up after myself mess, Scrape loose paint, and all kinds of jobs. Get one and try it on the stained wood and then clean up with the sander, (sure would save that sander)
 
Aside from the fact that I am envious of your cabin. I can feel for you on your tasks, I reciently finished re-doing my wood fence. That was a chore and I assume your job is even more trouble. I have a couple of ROS and if you would will a week to an old fisherman.... I'll even provide the paper.

On that thought... I have become a believer in the Carbide Scraper. A friend has been re-doing his 1900 house and had a Carbide scraper that he preached the praises about it. As cheap as he is the extra money for the carbide got me to thinking... Well, I had a task and so I bought one... Gee what a difference!!! I'm noot kidding, Get one and scrape first before you spend all that sanding time.. I use the scraper for a host of tasks, Clean the ridge left by the nicks in my planer, scrape the dried glue from my too lazy to clean up after myself mess, Scrape loose paint, and all kinds of jobs. Get one and try it on the stained wood and then clean up with the sander, (sure would save that sander)
I couldn't agree more about the scraper Bill. As folks will see in this extract from post #39 in this thread: Early this year, I found a much better scraper made by Bacho in Sweden, so I am doing very much more scraping before sanding than I did on the other three sides.

Bill, consider this an official invitation to Pellow's Camp. If you are serious please contact me and we will see what we can work out.
 
Sept 2011 Update:

This year the cycle starts all over again. It is the north wall's turn and, this year, that has been a very busy site, because I am also replacing a set of windows with French doors, building a small porch outside the doors and building a ramp up to the porch. I will describe those projects in other threads and will confine this update to the restoring of the logs on the north wall. As usual, this post will be crafted fromextracts from my weekly journal.

Aug 6: I made a very small start on the task of re-finishing the north wall of the cabin by buffing then staining the skirting board that is under the new doorway:

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 01 -The skirting board was sanded an.JPG

Aug 9: Before going into Hearst in the morning, I sanded some of the north wall in preparation for re-finishing. For the first time, I used what Festool calls an “interface pad” on my Rotex 150 sander. This is a thick sponge that attaches to the sanding pad where one usually attached the sandpaper then, in turn, the sandpaper is applied to the other side of the interface pad.

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 02 -The interface pad on the Rotex 1.JPG

It works well on the somewhat rounded logs.

For the most part, I am lightly sanding the logs, but there is a part of the wall below the removable screen/window frame that I made many years ago that has very bad drip marks. I am sanding that part right down to the wood:

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 03 -Water marks below window opening.JPG

I don't remember this region being as bad in the past and it is not nearly as bad below the other three screen/window frames on the porch. I will devise some sort of sill/ trough near the bottom of the opening in an attempt to prevent this in the future.

Sept 5: I finished sanding the logs today. The total time for the sanding job was 6 hours. Compare this with the 19 hours that it took to do the job 6 years ago. This time I only used my Rotex and Deltex sanders and only used Saphir 80 grit abrasive. I cleaned the abrasives occasionally with a crepe block. They lasted very well as witnessed by the photo of the only two pads that I used after completion of the job:

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 05 -Two sanding pads that did the en.JPG

The Deltex pad has pretty well had it, but there is still some life in the Rotex pad.

Sept 6: I applied the first coat of preservative today. It took about 3 hours (a lot of which was spent moveing stands and ladders). Here is photo taken part way throough the job:

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 06 -The first coat of preservative i.JPG

Sept 7: I applied the final coat of preservative today. It took about 2.5 hours. Here is photo taken after completion:

Touching up the preservative on the north wall of the cabin 07 -The second coat of preservative .JPG
 
Last edited:
Top