Inherited a house with sash windows. Frames are in good condition, sashes are not. I think I'm going to make new sashes and use either 444 or 464 double glazed units. As I will have about 100 joints to make I'm looking at the easiest way. Perfectly capable of cutting haunched tenons, but 100.... Thinking about mason-mitreing the profile and investing in the new festool domino 700. Yes its expensive, but cost spread over several windows makes them much cheaper than farming the job out. Anyone used dominos for window sashes? thoughts?
I would just get them made up, it would cost around £100 per sash and then you could glaze and paint them yourself.
Although I have not used my 700 for sashes I would say the Domino would be ideal for the job. Save a huge amount of time and no worries over the strength of the joint. Plus once you have it you will find a load more uses for it or you could sell it for not a lot less than you paid so a win-win.
Two drawbacks with this. Would be £2500 v cost of timber+festool+my time, - with only about £20 of timber in each sash there's a huge saving making up my own - but more important, there is quite a bit of size variation, and I'd rather make each one up to size once I have stripped and sorted the frames one by one so I can get the exact dimensions. Plus I am looking forward to the challenge! If they all had glazing bars I prob would farm them out, but this house and the others all have windows with single panes in the sashes so fairly straightforward.
pretty much yes, but there's a profile on one side that either has to be scribed or mason-mitred, and in a sliding sash the joints have to be particularly strong because inevitably there are twisting forces. Traditional joint is a haunched tenon.
Much can be done to rework the old sash boxes. However some may gone out of true and start looking diamond shaped. So I always add enough to cut to the box. You won't know exactly by how much until they are weighted and back in the box. Whereupon they level out and you can scribe any differences. On a wide sash the difference can be as much as 25mm. some boxes get pushed back into a room by rain debris and they are out of plumb, with the weights rubbing against the inside of the box and knocking into each other. ideally these should be repositioned, but that might mean almost the same as a new fitting and subsequent compliance. also i measure from the edge of the box ie where the staff beading joins. measuring an old sash can be inaccurate as it may have been planed to fit an overpainted box. a sash that can drift from side to side has its own peculiarities. any kind of jointing is only as good as its last coat of paint in exterior conditions, but a sash can't work itself apart when in the box; it just gets jammed. a door could well do so. as far as the tool itself goes. the meeting rail doesn't have much on it and the festool could well be non usable.
That's a good tip, to not learn the hard way! thanks. yes, I looked at that - I figure the meeting rail is about 35x60 so a 10x23 domino has about 1/3 meat all round if put in horizontally (i.e. 90 degrees to a normal tenon) - but this was why I was asking if anyone has actually used the festool for sash window sashes. which is one of the reasons to repair and not replace.............. Also, I haven't looked around too much for a good source of quality mouldings yet - any recommendations in the NW (preston/manchester area?) Thanks - that's helpful
with the 464 glazing configuration in a 35mm sash there won't be much left. i cut my own beadings to fit in the remaining space. so i router up the moulding and then trim to fit. but i have developed all the kit to do those things.
As you can tell, this isn't the voice of experience re sash windows, so all tips are welcome. I was thinking about 444 glazing, I know its available but haven't spoken to my glass merchant yet. My plann was to source ready-machined mouldings and then possibly increase the depth of the rebate to suit the glazing. Machining my own mouldings is an option on a router table, but with so much to do I'm looking at saving time where I can and still doing the job myself. You say you use beadings - This is another question as I've been looking around and seeing conflicting information about using/not using beads. - again any tips welcome!
Accoya engineered wood is becoming popular for windows, as it's stronger than ordinary timber & allows for slimmer glazing bars & rails.
well the thing is a standard sash rebate allows for approx 12 x 8 mm, that's if you buy it ready moulded. you would need to rout some more out to conceal the black edge of the dg units. then you are taking away stock from the frame and your alignments go out of whack. you really need to make the frames big enough to allow for rebating, not thicker but more depth to rout out to inset the dg units.
Just came to me Slimlite double glazed units, some of them can be glazed into 7mm deep glazing rebates. http://www.slimliteglass.co.uk/slim...lazed-units/slimlite-double-glazed-units.html
Thanks DWLondon - more food for thought. To be honest, I am not seeing the profile as a problem - I will research the DG units first - then sort the profiles - hopefully be able to source ready machined, but if I have to machine up my own deeper sections to cover the edge seals I will. I don't have glazing bars to worry about, so not a big problem.
I seem to remember my widow maker doing D/G units, which you can't use linseed putty on, by making what would have been the putty as part of the profile, then the unit was fitted and the internal ovolo bead pinned in after.
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