Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Here is one of my projects from earlier in the year.  

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, 

South Elevation

I was contracted by the BLM to provide a new front door for Yaquina Head Lighthouse, not to be confused with Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.  The BLM wanted a new door to match the original that had long since disappeared.  They had one drawing of what the door looked like and I had some old photos provided to me by one of my Preservation Field School students.  Her family was one of the Lighthouse Keepers back in the late 1800s.  The Lighthouse was built in 1872.

From the original drawings the size of the door was 7' x 3' at 2 1/4" thick.  The BLM wanted the species to be Alaskan Yellow Cedar (AYC); the species of the original could not be determined.  Alaskan Yellow-Cedar (C. nootkatensis) is a fine grained softwood actually related to the cypress family .  It is very expensive but a dream to work.  Because of this fine, tight grain planing and sawing this wood is a wonderful experience.  It does have an odor and some people are allergic to it but it is very durable in wet environments.

Planing AYC

Applying decorative chamfer

The assembly process for the door was intense due to the massive size of all the elements. The photo below is of the D-8 rip saw cutting the tenons in the bottom rail.  That bottom rail is 1' in height.  Since the drawing I had did not give any construction details I used Fred T. Hodgson's book Modern Carpentry, published in 1906 as a guide.

Ripping tenons

Assembling bottom rail and side stile

One of the biggest things that I fretted about was making the drip edge for the bottom of the door.  This piece was very clear in the original drawing, I just had to figure out how to do it.  It turned out to only take about 15 minutes to plane and fairly easy to install.

Start of planing drip edge

End result-ready to install

The dado for the drip edge

Seems like a great detail.  I'll see how it holds up down on the coast.

Ft. Dalles, Sill Patch

Some of the interesting putty techniques that I ran across during the restoration of the sash.

I also found a lot of glazing rabbet modifications.

The only sill that I found to be rotten was this one on the weather side of the building. Pretty good for a 150 year old building that has been painted only twice in its lifetime. But The Dalles only gets about 14 inches of rain a year (Portland gets around 35-40 inches per year).

Unfortunately the rot went all the way into the beam below the sill.

This is the beam after I cleaned out all the rot.

The D-8 ripping down a salvage beam that Eric donated to the project.

The patch glued and screwed to the existing beam.

The patch hewed down and epoxied.

No, this isn't Forks, WA.

Somewhere out there is one of my projects. When they forecast drizzle for the coast they really mean drenching shower with tiny droplets.

Here is the project on a sunny day.

This is the Coquille River Lighthouse located at the beautiful Bullards Beach State Park.

I am currently installing a replica window on the other side of the lighthouse.  There is no original fabric left from the windows.  The Army Corp of Engineers installed large wooden frames and glass in the openings in 1976.  Before this time the building was abandoned and left to the elements which led to the loss of the original windows.  I am working from an architect's drawings which were taken from the original architect's work.  Also there are quite a few old photos documenting the history of the lighthouse.

Here is the D-8 cutting the sill to fit.  It turned out to be a pretty complicated sill due to the addition of some concrete by the Corp in the 1970s.  The sill material is Alaskan Yellow Cedar.  It took me a little time to get used to the smell of it.


You can see all the complicated angles from this scrap.  The sill is purposefully left off the stucco in front, backer rod and a flexible sealant will be used to finish it off at the end.  And the flashing has yet to be installed either.  

This sill was expertly milled by Creative Woodworking.  These guys are awesome.  They always come up with a solution no matter what weird thing I bring to them.

This was the amazing moon set I saw on my last morning there.  

The project is about finished so more photos will be posted when it is complete.

Adventures of the D-8 Rip Saw

About a month ago I finally found the rip saw of my dreams, a D-8 pistol grip Disston rip saw. The beauty was on display at Rejuvenation Hardware in the salvage department.  The "salvage guys" and myself crowded around the object like buzzards to a carcass.  After I mulled it over for awhile I decided I would not find a better rip saw and purchased it for a more than a fair price.  One of the Rejuvenation employees was especially saddened to see the saw go.  He had had his eye on it since its arrival.

Since then I have been keeping my salvage friends up to date with the adventures of this saw.   One of the first projects that I used it on was the church in Golden.  Here is a shot of the saw ripping a new sill to width.

Cutting in Golden's graveyard.

A picture of the installed sill can be found at this previous post.

The next project that showcased the saw was for Shore Acres State Park.  This park is one of the most beautiful places in all of Oregon.  I have been working on the Gardener's House windows since last year.  The house is missing two small closet sash.  I had two identical sash to use as examples.

Here is a photo showing the cutting of the 2 bottom rails.  

And the finished sash along side one of the originals.

I will be posting more saw adventures with the D-8 in the future.