As it’s Spring, this weekend’s activities are DIY-related.
I have two joinery related issues that I would welcome some advice on:
1) I had to cut a gap in the garden fence to get a piano through (!) which involved cutting through a 4×4 horizontal fence post – how can I join the ends back together? Just a metal plate and screws? It doesn’t bear much weight but does have trees and ivy pushing against it so needs to be sturdy.
2) I have an exposed floorboard that has split down the middle at the end about 6″ long.. I don’t want to replace the board but attempts to (wood) glue it together have failed as it’s in a place that sees a lot of traffic. A new board would look bad.
Thanks.

For 2, can you put some bowtie thingies in?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7q2wgeDbdM

don’t start from here…

should have cut it on a diagonal 🙂

can you put some bowtie thingies in?

Maybe, that would pull it together but my biggest concern is the wood splintering at the crack and getting stuck in my kids feet.

should have cut it on a diagonal

9pm, in the dark, covered in ivy and getting eaten by spiders, I was thinking of a quick solution, not a good one! 🙂

No idea on 1) – would need to see the “damage”.

For 2), as long as the integrity of the board is ok – i.e. it’s not going to snap between the joists (in which case, you probably should replace it), then buy some good quality filler – you could dribble in a bead of expanding PU adhesive – this won’t necessarily help keep the board together, but might hang around long enough to give you a backing for the filler. Let the adhesive cure, wipe/scrape off the excess and “push” it down into the gap so that none is visible on the surface. Use a water-based filler (most are these days) – squeeze in with a flexible 1″ filling knife, wipe off – it might dry much lighter than the expected colour – if it does, wipe a bit of oil into it.

Osmo water based wood-filler is usually findable on Amazon/Ebay – should be £5+ per pot – but it is a really good filler. It nearly always needs a bit of oil rubbing into it as it always dries lighter than the colour.

thanks deadlydarcy
like this > link
or this > link

That’s the stuff (Osmo). Haven’t any experience of using the Everbuild stuff though.

sorry I thought the second link was Osmo too. I’ll give the Osmo a whirl.

For number 1, how’s about something like…

Maybe use plates on all accessible sides?

Bolting will hold longer than screwing but more involved obvs.

Could you not replace the whole length of timber?

For number 2, often if something has split, pulling it back together just puts it in stress and it may do it again.

Personally with splits, I sometimes will try to cut a slither of timber of the same species and tap it in with some glue, let it dry, flush it back.

This can be tricky as your slither will normally need to taper both in length and in section, but yeah, works well and the less filler you can use the better imho as filler looks like filler, wood looks like wood.

With the floorboard, if you can lift it, repair from the back by clamping it together and screw a piece of plywood to the underside.
If you can’t lift it put some small wedges either side of the board at the split end, forcing the split together.

In my work, I often need spacers, wedges etc. Which is why I have a couple of packs of playing cards in my toolbox. Very thin, easy to trim, quite stiff and stable.

thanks kayak23, bolting might be possible. Do I need special plates for exterior use? – the areas is shaded / damp. I can’t replaced the whole length – the rest of the post is buried in trellis / ivy which removing would create much more work. It doesn’t need to be too neat as it will be covered on one side with featherboard and ivy on the other.

I don’t really want to take wood away (apart from bits of splinter) as I think it will start to look a bit obvious. The pine flooring is maybe 60-70 years old so it looks well used anyway, it doesn’t need to be perfect. That’s why I don’t want to but a new board down as it looks very obvious. Perhaps I need to find some reclaimed flooring.

BigJohn – I can lift the board. Putting something on the back would stablize the crack so I might try that with a bit of filler. I don’t think wedges would stay in very long! It’s outside both my kid’s bedrooms so is jumped on, cycled on, etc.

edit: kids’ bedrooms.
I don’t have one kid with multiple bedrooms!

thanks kayak23, bolting might be possible. Do I need special plates for exterior use?

As long as they’re galvanized should be fine.

For the floorboards could you take a decent one from elsewhere on the floor that sees less traffic, and swap them over? Glue/tie/fill the broken one and put it in the low traffic area.

With ref to your floorboard issue, to prevent it from splitting more, drill a 3mm – 4mm hole at the very end of the split, or where it starts in the floorboard. Drill all the way through, this will stabilise your board and decide which of the many approaches to restore in whatever aesthetic you like… 😁

The Liberty ship fix – drill a hole to stop crack propagation!

so I’ve done no.1 which was a success – I used an angled plate I found in Wickes. Hid it at the back / bottom of the posts so it’s not visible. Strength TBD.