I was given the rather unusual project of restoring a finger post. This was a brilliant replica of one of the oldest original surviving finger posts installed in 1777, removed in 1978 and now in the Staffordshire County Museum. An identical replica was installed in 1982.
The finger post was made of oak, it had survived pretty well but one of the fingers was totally missing and the other two were coming apart and covered in algae and moss.
The lead cap on the top had split with age letting in water. The finger that had gone was decayed due to a shrinkage split in the oak post that channelled the water into the mortice joint rotting out the missing finger.
Luckily the Highways agency team were able to contact the museum and get photos of the missing finger.
Also rather luckily for me the replica was built as per the original and the fingers were held in place with wooden dowels and not glued on place. When these were carefully drilled out they could be removed without too much trouble.
Armed with the info about what I needed the new finger had to say I could trace the correct letter from the ones that remained using a broad flat pencil. This ensured I got the same size and font design for the new fingers wording.
For the replacement oak finger I used a plank of oak from a tree I had to cut down over four years ago.
After planing and sanding it flat I then traced the outline of the letter using carbon paper. This leaves the outline so that I could then carve by hand the letters in the same design and technique as the original.
After allowing the surviving fingers I cleaned of algae, moss and dirt to thoroughly dry out over a few weeks, I could then apply several coats of a deep penetrating oil that would then give back the oils in the wood that it had lost over years of being outside. A varnish is not appropriate because when they start to break down they peel and rain gets behind the broken varnish and it looks pretty awful in a couple of years.
With the old fingers now restored I had a baseline colour which I could then match the new oak to. I mixed a range of stains to an offcut of the oak and then applied the oil. I could then see the final colour. The recesses of the wording was painted as per the original and then the new finger also oiled.
The splits in the lead cap were re-soldered and repaired, a flexible waterproof fibreglass coating was applied on the inside so that if any further minor splits occurred then the cap would still remain waterproof. The lead was treated with several coats of patination oil to also help.
There were a number of deep splits in the oak post, some above the fingers which were enabling water to sit in the mortice joint causing decay. I used RepairCares resin system and tinted it with earth pigments to get a close match to the oak. This expands and contracts with the wood and is the only repair system allowed by the National Trust and English Heritage on wood.
Here is the finished project.
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