Edward D. Pinto, Sculptor, architectural restoration.

10/23/2026

Too dumb to come in ahhta the rain

10/23/2026

Well at least I’m not on a step stool on a scaffold in the rain. But if I was, I’d be happier being there with Mr. Justinian Morton, as we were this fine day, building box gutters in the rain.
Why the f**k we didn’t just make this cut with a tablesaw, I don’t know, but it did turn out just right.
Someday I’ll get back to interesting work…

10/11/2026

I did nearly all the restoration work on this house over a nine year period. I did not do the kitchen.
This house had been split up into eight apartments sometime in the 1930-50s, and had been largely un maintained for the last 50 years when it was bought by the current owners. When I came on board, much of the mechanical work and exterior had been done, but almost none of the interior had been touched. Every surface that you see looking perfect in this video looks that way because I stripped, sanded, rebuilt, replastered, or reproduced it. I could talk for hours about everything I did here. From running new (identical) plaster crown molding, rebuilding incredible parquet floors, reproducing an enormous window seat using only the ghost images from the original, adding period correct upgrades, reproducing missing newel posts, carving missing pieces of fireplace mantleIs, rebuilding fretwork.. I could go on and on.
The owners are very educated regarding what the house should look like, and did not restrain me at all in opting to do the work correctly. They were very true to the house, only modifying things when it was necessary to accommodate modern life, and I was very thankful for that.
I’ve probably got half a dozen VHS tapes of doing this work, as I’ve always been a fan of documenting what I do. I don’t have as many photos as I should, as film and developing it was a little bit much, but I’ll put some stills in the comments
This is the type of work I love to do, despite it being grueling repetitive and sometimes toxic, and this is definitely some of my best work.
Thank you to Annie from Houses Of Pittsburgh for documenting this💜

10/04/2026

I’ve talked before about how I really love old things, not just houses, but all old things. One of the ways this manifests, is that all my life I’ve driven old trucks, generally mid 1960s. A couple years ago I had a few serious problems with my 1966 F-350, and I panicked and bought a “new”, (to me) truck. It’s a 1993 Chevy piece of plastic and tin garbage. Even being 33 years old, it’s waaay too new for me, and it’s one of those idiotic vehicles that half the bolts are metric, and half are SEA, so you’re constantly guessing what you need, and it’s infuriating.
Well I recently fried a bearing in the back axle of that piece of s**t, panicked, and bought a real truck. This is a 1965 F-250, four wheel drive, AND THERE ARE ZERO METRIC BOLTS ON IT THANK GAWD.
I know this truck inside and out, so doing work to it is not at all confusing to me, I’ve had these trucks for the last 25 years, so completely familiar.
I’m not driving it yet, because I want to upgrade the brake system. These trucks come with a single circuit brake system. If you get a leak anywhere you lose all brakes. In 1967 the government mandated double circuit brakes, so if you get a leak in the back, the front still works, and vice versa. In the past I’ve done this upgrade by buying parts I figured would work, and putting together my own brake system, it worked, but this time I went to a company that specializes in selling complete, (more or less) systems. I’m still working on some mounting problems, but I’ll get there. I’m replacing every inch of the system, brake master cylinder and booster, all the brake lines with the new non rusting nickle copper brake lines, even bought stainless steel fittings for them, new wheel cylinders and brake hoses. The shoes themselves, the brake springs, and all four drums look fine. I even bought quality tools to flare and fabricate the brake lines, cause I do love new tools😆
P.S. I ended up fixing the fried bearings in the piece of tin trucks axle, which I didn’t think I could do, buuuut, I did my usual “read a book and figure it out” and it’s been fine for the last six weeks, soooo

10/04/2026

I do slate and copper and Terne roofing, but I’ll do shingle repair for friends. This is a bit of a tutorial about replacing blown off shingles, the camera work isn’t great, but if you can’t afford the hundreds of dollars to get a roofer, an able bodied person could learn enough from this to do it.
This situation is unfortunately caused by poor installation. This is an 1864 second empire, and originally had slate where these shingles are. The sheathing boards for slate have gaps between them, often those gaps are an inch wide. When roofers shingle over that sheathing they often don’t realize that they are shooting the nails into those gaps. Unless you know what it sounds like, you don’t notice it, and really, most roofers just don’t care.
For any of you pros watching this and wondering what that ridiculous hammer I’m using is.. that is an Estwing drywall axe that I modified into a slate axe. I absolutely love it. I ground the hammer head down square, and the axe side into a point, then welded onto the point to make it longer. I also ground the handle down into a blade like a real slate axe. I did all this in my 20s when I first started doing slate. I was ridiculously poor, and a real slate axe at my local roofing supplier was 112$. No way I was paying that. Once I started doing more slate, I got kinda proud of myself, and figured I better look the part, and bought that real slate axe. I still have it. It still looks new, because it weighs a ton! Soooo, I keep using my crazy lightweight homemade slate axe. It’s great for all roofing activities, including tin knocking. If I lost the damn thing I’d probably make another 😆

10/03/2026

10/03/2026

Burning the midnight oil still, my planes are a mess, most of these don’t even belong on that shelf, yet here we are.

10/03/2026

Burning the midnight oil, cleaning up my hellhole of a shop. Anyone who’s ever helped me do this will tell you that while it looks like piles of junk, once you remove the rocket pop cans it’s basically piles of tools and really cool materials and parts. Like Satanic keyhole escutcheons.
This little Tupperware has been kicking around my shop for years, I’ve always kept it safe. The hardware is for my original double front screen doors, which I restored, and even was gifted fancy period correct hinges for. However, at the same time I restored the front doors. And they looked so insanely good I couldn’t bring myself to put the screen doors over them. So, here we are.

09/26/2026

I don’t go antiquing much anymore, my house is so full of ridiculously cool stuff that I rarely see much that I can justify adding. I went to a shop today though that just had TONS of great stuff, and I figured I’d show yinz some of it.