Having cut the lengths of wood for the door, I have been putting them through the plane. This is one of my favourite bits of woodworking, as the scuzz on the planks is removed and you end up with nice smooth pieces that reveal the grain. However, they also revealed something else – in this case, traces of woodworm.
Woodworm is very common in wood but it isn’t usually too much of a problem for two reasons. The first is that the worms seem to move on quickly and no longer inhabit your wood. I’ve personally never seen a woodworm, although I’ve seen woodworm holes in umpteen pieces of furniture. The second reason is that woodworm prefer the softer sapwood and generally leave the heartwood alone. As you are throwing away the sapwood anyway (too soft for cabinet-making), it doesn’t really matter if it has holes in it.
But the oak for my front door definitely does have woodworm holes, and it shouldn’t, so I got Jean-David to phone up and complain. It sounds better coming from a professional. This wood did cost top dollar – about CHF 600 – which makes a cheap solid oak front door, but an expensive couple of planks, and there is no way it should have woodworm in it at that price. The lumber merchants agreed and offered to replace it. Fine, but I have spent 7 hours assessing it, measuring it, deciding which bits to use, sawing and planing it, which all adds up to a sizeable investment in terms of time and lessons in these particular pieces of wood. This was explained to the merchant, who has made a 25% discount of CHF 150, which is a little more than £100. Well, it’s an outcome, but it does mean that my finished oak door is going to have woodworm holes in it.
There are those who deliberately put fake woodworm holes in the furniture they make to give it an aged, authentic look, so maybe, not having to go to this trouble, I shouldn’t complain, but it is a little annoying. There isn’t that much woodworm, and what there is will be confined to the inside of the finished door. Also, this front door is not going to look out on to Eaton Terrace, Belgravia, London W1, but my veggie garden. It’s not going to be painted black and have a brass lion head knocker attached to it. So a little rustic effect isn’t really going to hurt. It’ll be a top door in any event.
I have been looking into restoring the wrought ironwork too. It appears that the coat of arms (see other photos in previous post) is in fact a piece of beaten copper and that the whole thing was made by a guy who lived down the road but who is now sadly dead. I thought about just removing the paint myself and repainting it, but I’ll have to buy paintstripper, undercoat and paint. Then what am I going to do with the paintstripper I’ve used? I can barely tip it down the drain. Frankly, with three different products to buy and an ecological headache, it barely seems worth it, so I think I shall take the ironwork to my local friendly car body shop and get them to do it. I doubt it will be much more expensive, but if it looks like it’s going to be… Then I need to contact the people to make the mirror window. It’s all go.
