1850 reproduction sash


Tom King

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Here's where those Heart Pine 3x's came from.  They were "supports" for 20 foot long 3x3 rafters.  The supports were sitting vertically under the rafters, but the rafters weren't lined up above the floor joists, so they set the posts on top of old 1x used flooring boards spanning between the joists.  That's the reason we were building the trusses up there to wedge the noodle rafters back into a flat plane.  It was nice for them to leave us some good, straight grained 3x3's though.

There was a 12 x 14" access door into the attic, but fortunately it lined up nicely with the outside steps so we could pull those 2x12x16's up there with the back doors to the house open.

 

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This morning, I modified a sash molding plane to match the molding profile I'm copying.  The one we need is an odd ogee (all curves).  I think whatever plane they used for them had worn down to its own particular shape. 

I had made a mold from one of the windows, and sent that to Whiteside to see about making a set of custom router bits, like I've used before.  I only wanted one of each.  Whiteside used to do that, but have updated their production equipment since the last time I bought some, and they now only make orders in multiples of six each, so they sent my mold down the road to another place.  I never got around to ordering the bits, and now I'm glad I didn't.

They had sent back drawings, for my approval, that looked like they were okay, but all the curved shapes were constant radius-es.  I modified an ovolo (sharp inside corners) sash plane that I already have a set of bits to match, because I wouldn't need it again, since I have the bits.

I got a test piece to the point that it matched the drawing exactly, but still didn't look right to me.  We decided to go back to the 1850 house, and make another mold.  In the process, I thought of how to simply make the mold so I could use it to mark the copes by.  I didn't think to take one of the sized muntins with me, but the mold was still pliable enough when we got back, that I clamped it around one of the muntin blanks, and will let it set up over the weekend.

Oatey plumbers epoxy putty is about the ideal stuff to make such molds from.  I had one of the girls where we ate lunch to give me a piece of the really thin plastic wrap they use to for a release film on the old window sash.

I hope the pictures tell the story.  I used some of my small hollow planes, but the one most useful was a nice little 1/4" skew rabbet plane.  Still needed to follow them was a high-tech shaper of sandpaper on a hand split waxing applicator.  I think it was the first time I ever used the rounded corners on my CBN wheel, but they turned out to be just the thing for the job on the iron.

The molding plane will get a little more modification on Monday.

 

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It's hard to have too many molding planes.  I bought most of mine from the UK, back when "small packets" could be shipped for 6 to 8 dollars.  I have them stored in waterproof boxes, cleaned before being stored, and desiccant canisters in the boxes.  I don't need to look at them, or have them sitting out to collect dust.  I just want them to only need sharpening to use.  There aren't many that I paid over $15 for.

IT seems like they stored them in houses over there, whereas most of the ones in this country have been stored in barns.  I never felt like I had time to recondition them.

This box has my hollows and rounds.  I'm not a collector.  It doesn't matter to me who made them, how old they are, or if a set is any kind of match.   I just want to be able to use one that I need.

 

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These are what we're replacing.  The original sash have 5/8" wide muntins, and one of the reasons for the importance of this house is the transition in architectural details from the early 19th Century to the mid 19th Century.

This is one of the last things we're changing that was done to this house in the 1980's.  Two windows had been replaced on the back of the house.  The sash have large, over inch and a quarter wide, ugly muntins in the replacement sash.

 

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I didn't work on this today, with too much other stuff to do, but I did think about it.  I need to round off the little corners that are digging the squarish corners don't in those hollows, and I think it will be there.   This is the first thing I've run into where I feel like the 180 grit CBN wheel is too coarse.  I'm afraid it would take those tiny corners off too easily to be able to control.

In a bunch of other tools that I was left by a friend, there is a Harbor Freight wet grinder.  I tried it once, but it's so slow, and over heats so easily that it's not much good for anything normal, but I think it might be just the tool to round over those too sharp tiny corners.

I didn't notice who made this molding plane, as I never pay attention to that sort of thing, but they did a really good job of hardening this low carbon steel.  I couldn't hardly cut it with my oil stones, but my water stones did a fine job with it.  I have it plenty sharp enough already, so don't want to have to reshape the whole profile-just those little corners.

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Mike said we had thrown out that Harbor Freight wet grinder years ago, so we didn't waste any time this morning looking for it.   Just as well though, as my diamond paddle files were in the top of the Sharpen toolbox, and I was able to round those corners right off with them.  I also found an xx-fine diamond rat tailed file, and that did a good job on the inside the the curves.

With the molding plane ready to go, we started in on running multiple setups on the tablesaw to waste most of the material on the outside of the molding profile.  I didn't leave much work for the molding plane to do, but didn't start in on that today.  I just indicated where the corners of the shoulders were with the first cuts, so there shouldn't be any tearout there when the grain goes the wrong way.  Cutting rabbets where the blade exits a side is messy without the overarm DC, but this is one of those jobs that it gets in the way.

The originals have a lot of tearout on some pieces, but it's not something anyone notices.

 

 

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