I live in an old chapel built in 1817 where I believe further embellishments were made in 1875. I had a new slate roof put on about two years ago and I now need to do some decorative repair on a few areas of the timber ceiling where past rainwater leakage has caused a bit of staining.
The chapel is about 50 ft long with a gable end frontage and the roof is supported by six equally spaced exposed rafters along its length. The ceiling sections between the rafters comprise of long timber panels close coupled together a bit like floorboards. These panels run in the direction of the chapels length and follow the pitch of the roof on its two sides before flattening out in the centre where there is a small loft space up above.
This timbered ceiling is coloured with a dark stain, almost matt finish, which is probably original. I will need to get up very high to inspect the rain water stains but from ground level it looks like water trickle marks on a few boards running across the grain, which appear to have washed the dark stain away in their tracks and on one or two of the other boards there is what appears to be a cream or buff coloured streak running in the direction of the grain,which from ground level looks like a calcium deposit.
The rafters which I think are again in their original colour have an even darker flat matt finish of dark chocolate brown.
I am reluctant to use modern stains and varnishes to do the repairs. Can anybody advise what might have been used originally for both the ceiling boards and the rafters? What ever it was it has lasted very well and it shows no sign of deterioration apart from the odd bits of rainwater staining described above .
The chapel is about 50 ft long with a gable end frontage and the roof is supported by six equally spaced exposed rafters along its length. The ceiling sections between the rafters comprise of long timber panels close coupled together a bit like floorboards. These panels run in the direction of the chapels length and follow the pitch of the roof on its two sides before flattening out in the centre where there is a small loft space up above.
This timbered ceiling is coloured with a dark stain, almost matt finish, which is probably original. I will need to get up very high to inspect the rain water stains but from ground level it looks like water trickle marks on a few boards running across the grain, which appear to have washed the dark stain away in their tracks and on one or two of the other boards there is what appears to be a cream or buff coloured streak running in the direction of the grain,which from ground level looks like a calcium deposit.
The rafters which I think are again in their original colour have an even darker flat matt finish of dark chocolate brown.
I am reluctant to use modern stains and varnishes to do the repairs. Can anybody advise what might have been used originally for both the ceiling boards and the rafters? What ever it was it has lasted very well and it shows no sign of deterioration apart from the odd bits of rainwater staining described above .