STRAIGHTENING OUT A CRUSHED BASE
by Tom Hull
This house arrived with a badly crushed base. Apparently at some point it had
gotten water soaked and then stepped on. When it dried out is was badly
squished and of course stayed that way. Here is my remedy for this problem.
This is pretty much the way it came in: off its base and generally mucked up. Notice the peeling paper due to water soaking. But wait -- it gets worse.
As you can see this is badly damaged. Probably happened while someone
was stepping through the putz to water the tree.
In order to restore this it will have to be dismantled and the parts ironed
flat with an ordinary household iron. Here, I've got the bottom card off and the internal
"U" strips set aside. Save those! They have to go back in. ( One showing at
the right in the picture.)
The first step was to remove the house, the fence, and
of course any other obstructions, as this has to be worked flat.
(In this case, I left the other fence in place as that area wasn't crushed.)
The next step was to cut the bottom card off with a hobby knife. The water
spritzer in picture #4 is to dampen the brittle old cardboard and get it pliable again.
You may have to do this repeatedly as you work the piece flat.
When opening a base up you may find mold, dust, mouse nests and other muck inside. Clean anything like that out. Then
Cut the corners as this will allow the base to be flattened. Through the next two
pictures you will see that I work the piece by molding it and ironing it over an
ironing board or pad, just like ironing clothes,Folks! I always work it with a paper towel over the ironing pad.
Here I have pressed the piece and it's sides flat- first having done sufficient
mist-dampening to keep the brittle old sides from splitting off at the fold
lines.
In this instance, I am not using a paper towel between the iron and the work because
I saw no old glue or paint on the inside, but I always keep one under the work
to protect the ironing pad. Looks like the end
piece is particularly crushed and will need a bit more water as well as heavy
pressure from the iron.
Now i am working the top surface and using towels between iron and work as well
as between the work and ironing pad. I run the iron fairly hot, and don't want
to run over any paint and old glue. That old dark-brown animal glue will still
melt with heat and smear and stick to the iron and pad and make a mess of things - plus,
it smells just AWFUL!The towel will take it up, and Mom will love you for it.
Here's what we've working toward - ready to re-assemble. The old water stains you see
came from the old damage. Don't worry about them. They won't show.
Re-assembly begins with restoring the corners. Paper strips ( I am using white paper,
here, but strips cut from brown grocery bags are also good.) and white glue do
the job. I use Aileen's Tacky Glue, but Elmer's-type or carpenter glues are fine.
They take longer to dry, but are very strong. Note I also had to reinforce a side
with a paper patch. It split off. That will happen, sometimes, no matter what you do.
This is how you fix it.
Proceeding with corners and paper clips, here. Corners sometimes need spread a bit.
For more detail on re-assembly - check out my bit on building a whole new base
from scratch. The process is the same, except you are working with old parts:
Finally, the "U" strips have been put back, the bottom card glued back on
and everything is being held in place with rubber bands until the glue had dried.
Later I will redo the fence and some paint work, but that's another story!
This same ironing technique is also be used to straighten up
crumpled
house walls, roofs and church steeples, too.
Have fun! Tom
