I have a couple of window sills like this. I may have asked before, but I can't recall. These are original to the main house. Yes, they look bad, yes, they have been worked on by a couple of generations. These are cypress and well over 100 years old. They held up OK. But, they need to be fixed now. I can re-point when I am done, but I am not quite sure how to fix this. From all of my research on historical restoration, it seems the accepted practice is to simply cut it out to good wood, and mill a new piece. Then seal well, and attach to the good wood of the original. The stone underneath is hand hewn and sourced on the property and is about 20" thick. So, there is no removing the old sill, I don't see a way around that.
Has anyone done anything like this? Am I one the right track? Questions:
1.) Should I surgically cut out the rot, mill a new piece of wood?
2.) If so, what wood should I try to find? And...cutting down a cypress tree, and shaping it with a draw knife seems a bit extreme, so I'd like to just get what i need somewhere.
3.) What about epoxy products that 'fill' instead? I saw it on This Old House, you dig out the rot, fill with epoxy, shape it, paint it, etc. I'm not convinced it's a good way to do it, but technology is ahead of me.
Has anyone done anything like this? Am I one the right track? Questions:
1.) Should I surgically cut out the rot, mill a new piece of wood?
2.) If so, what wood should I try to find? And...cutting down a cypress tree, and shaping it with a draw knife seems a bit extreme, so I'd like to just get what i need somewhere.
3.) What about epoxy products that 'fill' instead? I saw it on This Old House, you dig out the rot, fill with epoxy, shape it, paint it, etc. I'm not convinced it's a good way to do it, but technology is ahead of me.
