Glazing Frames and posters

Today, Mrs Beynon from Brookwood School delivered a wonderful set of posters made by the young people in the school which are reproduced here. These posters are situated at the bottom of the black back board. Having the school involved in the kiosk is really good news, and we really appreciate the efforts by the teachers to assist with this project.

The final poster from our advertisers has now gone in the kiosk. Glassmaster have supplied the glass, and can now be considered as the premier supplier of glass for telephone boxes in the district!

Over the past couple of days, Alan has continued directly painting the kiosk. The dome and the crowns have now received the second and final coat of paint. This gives the paint five days to harden ready for Allsigns to complete the gilding next week. The inside frames on each side have had a single coat of paint and won't have another one as these will be covered by the glass and the glazing frames.

 Finally, the outside frames of the west side have had the second coat.

Tomorrow, both Alan and I have the day off and we will focus on sorting out the kiosk. In preparation for that, most of the glazing frames have been prepared with red oxide. The pictures here show the small glazing frames sitting on a pallet drying after a coat of red oxide, and small and large glazing frames hanging on a washing line drying after a coat of red paint.

We expect to glaze the west side completely, if we're lucky that will stop people chucking their litter in the kiosk as they walk past after getting off the train.

Outside - First Coat Complete

Not the best picture in the world, but Alan has completed the first coat of the entire outside and rather good it looks too.

This morning, as I walked to the station, the sun was shining on the third side and it just looked brilliant. I think once the second coat is complete it will look absolutely stunning.

I still can't get over just how red it is compared with the tired other kiosks that still occasionally remain.

Is that red or RED?

Yesterday, I started at half seven in the morning as I knew the weather was going to be poor and it was essential that the red oxide was completed if we were to start painting the kiosk in the final red.

The rain started about nine o'clock and I had completed the ceiling (as the photo shows), and was forced to leave the remaining areas inside the kiosk.

I also picked up all the glass from Glassmaster.

Today, and a lot of activity, starting this morning with completing the red oxide inside. The weather then turned and I abandoned in the hope that we would be able to continue this afternoon. Around half two, we were able to start applying the first coat of paint. As it makes sense to work from the top down, we initially painted the white ceiling. The rest of the inside was left as we need to give the white and the red oxide time to go off.

We then moved on to the outside and the picture here shows Alan applying the very first brush stroke of red 539 paint. This was an extremely satisfying moment which we celebrated with a pint from the Club. Our intention was to paint the roof and the top of the kiosk where the crowns are. This is to ensure that we get time to apply the second coat and it has time to harden ready for Roy from Allsigns to do the gold leaf.

Alan had the exciting job of applying the paint while I used up almost an entire roll of masking tape, taping up the windows all round. This took over an hour and I then picked up a paint brush and we carried on painting the third side and the door.

By the time we finished at half six tonight, we had completed the dome and four crowns, the door inside and out, and the outside of the third side. It is difficult to explain just how satisfying today was. Over four months of very hard work and it has finally begun to take shape. It was also quite amazing just how many people stopped and spoke with us today. I'm grateful to the local resident for a nice cup of tea when I was quite cold this morning.

Finally, I hope we are not blamed for the minor car accident which took place outside the club, I think the driver was probably looking at the 'phone box when he hit the guy in front.

Red Oxide Outside and In

Been way too busy recently, but over the course of the week, Alan and I managed to complete scraping the inside. What you can see in the attached photo is a little bit of the original undercoat and the first ever coat of paint. We're not taking it right back, as we don't need to, although prior to red oxiding it, we will go over it with a final dose of paint stripper and a wire brush to get the last of the loose stuff off.

Today the bulk of the kiosk was painted with red oxide. The whole of the outside has been done, and all the inside frames where the glass will be fitted. What remains we hope to do over the weekend if the weather allows us. Our plan is to do the first coat of red and white on Monday, so ideally we need a break over the weekend to finish red oxiding. The second coat we are planning to apply Thursday evening, or maybe Friday to give us some flexibility regarding weather.

The glass is now ready and I shall pick that up tomorrow. We reckon we will fit the panes next weekend.

Sunday Progress

Anzac Day today and a good afternoon in Woking with the Scouts celebrating St. Georges Day which meant we didn't get quite as far as originally planned. We are now slightly behind according to our plan, but I'm sure we'll pull it round in time. We scraped off almost the remainder of the paint on the inside early this morning, so I hope we didn't disturb anyone. There is a small amount left which will probably take a couple of hours or so to complete. We also had a tidy up and removed the litter which had built up inside.

The small panes of glass which remain in the kiosk were cleaned up properly today, and with few exceptions look brilliant. This is a relief as the new panes will be crystal clear and we didn't want obvious differences between new and old.

I have confirmed with Tony at Unicorn exactly how the inside paint should be done. The white paint should come down to the top of the bar, immediately below the TELEPHONE sign. Apparently, the white was often painted below as it was subsequently covered with red to make a good join line. Makes perfect sense.

A major milestone was reached during the week when Alan finished making up the large glazing frames. These now need priming prior to being fitted next weekend.

There is an outside chance that the refurbishment of the railings will be complete in time for them to be reinstalled ready for 16 May.

I have also confirmed with Roy at Allsigns that the gilding of the crowns will take place when convenient for Allsigns, week commencing 10 May. This means we have to have the final red coat of paint on several days before that to give the paint time to go off. We are a little short of funds to complete this, so if you would like to gift some money for the gold leaf, please get in contact with me.

Assuming the weather is with us this coming week, we should be in good shape with an almost completed kiosk by Monday evening next weekend.

Outside scraping complete!

First bit of news is that we finally finished scraping the outside. Although it looks from the picture that there is still a lot of paint at the bottom, it is clear enough for us to red oxide it. The third side is complete, and the dome has now been finished. We completed this during the week when we popped down a couple of evenings for an hour or so.

We have taken stock of where we are, and with the expertise of Tony at Unicorn have worked out a plan from here. We had decided there just wasn't the time to complete the inside ahead of May 16. With the good weather we've been having, and the weather forecast over the next few days, we have decided to try and scrape the majority of the paint from the inside. We're not going to remove the back board, as it just isn't necessary to repaint that side.

Today we started on the inside of the dome, which wasn't particularly pleasant as it was very warm up there, and there were shed loads of cobwebs.

The picture here raises an interesting question which I need to have with Unicorn. You can see a great deal of the top coat has been removed in this picture (it just falls off), and underneath is an original white coat which does scrape off fairly easily, but is also good enough to form a base. As I've blogged before, the kiosk has been painted incorrectly over the years, and we intend on rectifying that. However, how I've been told it should be done, and how the kiosk was originally painted are slightly different. Kiosks that I've seen restored have the white paint come down to the bottom of the TELEPHONE sign, above the bar that runs round the kiosk which has been painted red. It is clear from this picture, that there is original white paint on the bar and immediately underneath it. Where the bar is at right angles with the vertical side, it goes back to red paint. I'm going to gather more detailed pictures as we go along here, as I want the kiosk to be as original as possible.

So, the current plan is to scrape the inside during the week and red oxide next weekend.

Unicorn Kiosk Restorations and insurance

Today I collected the new door handle from Unicorn Kiosk Restorations. I was extremely surprised and grateful when Unicorn donated the door handle to us in recognition of our restoration efforts. I said in one of the early posts that our kiosk will be brilliantly finished due to the advice and assistance from Tony at Unicorn, and I only hope he is impressed with the job we have done as amateurs.

Great news from Cllr Glynis, the kiosk has been added in its own right to the general Woking Borough Council insurance policy. The kiosk is only insured against total loss, i.e. theft or accidental damage. It is not insured for minor damage like broken panes of glass. I don't know the cost, but my understanding is that the  kiosk has probably been explicitly insured for no additional cost to the Council Tax payer. I will endeavour to find out so that if there has been a cost, then it is factored into our figures for future budgeting purposes.

More Brookwood based businesses have come to me offering sponsorship in return for advertising spots in the kiosk. We'll see what can be arranged on this.

More paint was scraped off last night, and we will finish scraping the paint from the outside this week.

The Dome

Work has finally started on the dome! As suspected, the paint falls off, there are about four layers, and once the top coat has been scratched off, the rest scrape off with a little elbow grease.

The two pictures here show the dome when we started, and the dome after Alan and I had spent about half an hour on it. Another half an hour and that will be done.

Scraping wise, we are almost there. I know I've been saying this for two weeks now, but really, we are. There is a little paint left on the fourth side, right at the bottom and to the right. It is so difficult, ideally we could do with the services of a contortionist to finish that off, along with the third side which also has a small amount of paint at the bottom.

I think we are planning to do an hour or so tomorrow evening which will hopefully see the external scraping complete.

Getting there...

As can be seen from the two pictures, we are almost there with the scraping. A bit on the back to go which I could have finished this morning if I wasn't so knackered and covered in specks of paint. Interestingly, at the very bottom of the kiosk where the dirt has been piled up for donkey's years, there is virtually no paint left. It will be a case of a thick covering of Nitromors, leave it for half an hour and then wire brush it off, which is good news as the knees can't take prolonged periods bending down.

The roof still needs doing, but I'll need to get a higher set of ladders to reach the top, however what I can see looks to be very flaky, and probably only one coat, so I expect it to be complete fairly quickly.

Most of the third side has been completely stripped.

I think we are on to red oxide the whole of the outside on Sunday.

We have accepted that we are not going to complete the inside by the middle of May, although we intend on getting as far as we can, and certainly by May 16 it will look good inside. It is just unlikely that at this stage we will remove all the paint from the interior. The interior paint has been removed from around the windows which means the finish will be good and the kiosk well protected, but to take the black back board off and scrape the paint off just isn't necessary at the moment.

Ordered the door handle from Unicorn and I'll nip down and pick that up on Wednesday next week.

I'm thinking that I might be able to get the Labour Party to sponsor the kiosk. If we agree to paint it red, they might give us some cash...