Andrew is restoring Toronto's Old City Hall, resetting, repairing even replacing some of those old sculptured blocks that sit high up on the wall.One of his challenges is making mortor that will act and look like the original stuff. One way that he accomplishes that goal is to grind up whatever ...
Leigh Bamford is a young tradesperson who takes historical restoration, even just old house repair very seriously. With five years of experience, she insists on using old materials and old techniques on old buildings.RemvoialRather than using a power grinder to remove the old mortar from between...
Scissors have the flat side where they two blades rub, then a cutting bevel followed by a relief bevel. So how do you sharpen them? Get the flat side flatStart by using a stone to remove any nicks that stick past the flat side. Just put the stone on the flat and grind until the entire side is ...
Working in his fathers shop, Val Bernardo, showed us how he gets that shiny polished edge on stone counters. A surprising amount of the final polishing is done by hand with colour coded polishing grits. We were visiting York Marble, Tile & Terrazzo in Toronto.If you need to do some serious ...
Dan from Fort Erie, Ontario wrote: I purchased a retirement home here just over an year ago and have noticed that the angel stone facing on the front of the house is breaking off. The house is about 40 years old and I suspect the angel stone is original. It appears that water is getting into ...
The famous outdoor second story steps in downtown Montreal, an area they call Balconville because of all the open balconies with stairways, presents a real safety problem in those icy Montreal winters. The most common anti-slip treatment is to install a jute runner, commonly called Tapis CoC...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Concrete Product: All site mixed or delivered concrete
Temperature Limitations: Use above +2 C (+35 F)
Rain Limitations: No rain until surface is firm -- several hours
Wind Limitations: n/a
...
The world of tiles is changing rapidly.
Twenty years ago we generally had a range of tile sizes from 1 ft x 1 ft down to tiny mosaic tiles. This made tiling relatively simple because slight changes in the flatness of the surface could be adjusted for at the next grout line. In fact that is...
Hi Jon,
I have a driveway retaining wall that continues to be pushed by the ground, even though it is backed by gravel and drained to "nothing under the driveway" except crushed gravel. I realize proper drainage affects this somewhat, however would prefer not to cut open my driveway, sidewalk a...
Probably one of the best ways to learn about good and bad building techniques is to work on the renovation or restoration side of the construction picture. Here is where you see the results of everything done before, especially when the results are a failed system. In the world of ceramic, stone ...
