Live edge cherry window sill

[Anderson]

Hi everyone!

I worked on a little project over the last few days and remembered to take a few pictures for once. :D

Our house walls are straw bale, so they are around 20" thick and our windows are installed on the outer plane of the wall which leaves quite a bit of space between the window and the inside plane of wall. I have been making a few trim pieces to cover the rough plywood in these ares, I decided to try leaving the front of this one natural. 

This is the area that I would like to cover with trim.


 <

Here is the Cherry slab I plan to use 9' x 1 1/4 thick



 

Ripped to width and jointed in my super messy shipping container shop



 

Through the planer, More mess in the background, I did deep clean this past week as well.  :



 

All glued up! 



 

Here's a close up of the grain after some natural oil finish



 

I filled a few knots with black filler



 

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of scribing it in but here it is in place.



 

[doc henderson]

very cool.  is it an old building or just rounded window trim.

[tule peak timber]

Anderson,
 Nice work..! What is your natural oil finish, black filler.
  Very nice...

[thecfarm]

Nice job, that adds a lot to it!!

[Brad_bb]

Very nice!!  Looking at the thickness of the wall and plaster, Is that straw bale construction?

[Nebraska]

How did you round those corners of the window openings?? Straw bales aren't shaped that way unless you use a really old style Allis Chalmers small round baler.

[WDH]

Very well done!

[kantuckid]

Well done. Oil on cherry is hard to keep from blotchyness sometimes. It will turn nice and dark fast in a window.
Is the insect/rodent thing hard to control in a straw bale house?
I've seen them done on TV.

[petefrom bearswamp]

Very nice 
Kantuck, I wondered the same thing regarding vermin

[Brad_bb]

I've used Charles Neil's Blotch Control and seems to work well.  I'd always use on cherry or pine which are very prone to blotching, any figured woods too.

[Anderson]

Anderson,
Nice work..! What is your natural oil finish, black filler.
 Very nice.

I wish my pictures of the grain had turned out better. The finish is Land Ark which is now Heritage Natural Finish. I wish it had a little more gloss for wood working in general but I mostly use it on timber frame stuff which is usually green wood and it works great for that.
The filler is Timber Mate from Australia. 
Thanks for the kind words!

[Anderson]

To the questions about straw bale construction, no trouble with mice due to the straw. One of the main concerns with building with straw is to make sure your plaster is air tight so a side benefit of that is no access for vermin. I was a little nervous about the bale walls in our sometimes wet climate but they have performed beautifully. I have tested the walls for excess moisture twice a year for the last 5 years now and no problems.   8)  

Doc it was a new build. 6 years now.

The rounded window openings I shaped with a electric chainsaw prior to the plaster, the rounded corners let way more light in vs a deep square opening.

I will check out that blotch control stuff Brad, I did have some trouble with that and ended up sanding the finish back off and sanding to a higher grit then reapplying the finish. Which seemed to help but still not perfect.  

Thanks everyone!

[Stephen1]

Looks great.
 lets see some pictures of the whole house please. 

I thought it was interesting on what some of us read and understood from the 1st posting from Anderson. just an observation on the following posts. Maybe we look at pictures to much?
An old house?
is it a straw bale?

[Brad_bb]

@Anderson , here is Charles Neil's youtube vid about the blotch control.  He's a slow talker, but the product works.  Even if you're just applying an oil finish, use the blotch control first because oils by themselves can blotch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfCYMdrP8rM

I picked up on it being straw bale due to the thickness of the wall.

[wildtmpckjzg]

Hi everyone!

I worked on a little project over the last few days and remembered to take a few pictures for once. :D

Our house walls are straw bale, so they are around 20" thick and our windows are installed on the outer plane of the wall which leaves quite a bit of space between the window and the inside plane of wall. I have been making a few trim pieces to cover the rough plywood in these ares, I decided to try leaving the front of this one natural.

This is the area that I would like to cover with trim.


 <

Here is the Cherry slab I plan to use 9' x 1 1/4 thick



 

Ripped to width and jointed in my super messy shipping container shop



 

Through the planer, More mess in the background, I did deep clean this past week as well.  :



 

All glued up!



 

Here's a close up of the grain after some natural oil finish window glass replacement



 

I filled a few knots with black filler



 

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of scribing it in but here it is in place.

Some of my window sills and exterior trim have rotted likely due to a previous owner plugging up the weep holes in the triple track exterior storms. After some research, the window sill repair seems doable for me. I've only really seen info on replacing the sill from the outside of the house, but the windows in question are on the 3rd story. I have a two story colonial with a garage under, and walk-out basement in the back, property is on a slope, so the back and backsides of the house are virtually 3 stories. Can I do this type of work from inside the house? Any advice? Would I even be able to remove the triple tracks from the inside? I'm trying to avoid dying on a 40 foot extension ladder... thoughts?