Hardware Order

It's time to order the sealed units, seals and hardware. I'm likely to ponder this for a while and check out glazing suppliers. I've got the latest Reddiseals catologue, they supplied the hardware for the small test window, so I'll sit and have a look through that.

The other main decision is the actual seal to the glazing. There are a few types of seal available so got some further research to do.

Whilst I'm at it I'll do some more research in to Linseed oil paints. I was going to go for conventional paints but from what I've read on various forums I'm tempted to go with "Holkham" paints.

If anyone has any experience, please let me know. I'm after the best solution and price doesn't mater.

Cord groove

All the way down each side of both sashes the cord groove is routered.

Although the cord will only go about 200 down the sides the groove goes all the way. This can help stop water being driven on to the brush seals.

To make this a little steadier to cut, as its on the full glued up sashes, I knocked up another large fence. I'm sure it'll come in handy for other jobs.

I also need to widen the groove at the top to allow the pulley to pass. I'll wait until the hardware arrives to figure out the dimensions.

Back to the Job

After a few celebratory beers on Saturday night, it was back to it on Sunday as there's still more to do.

The parting beads, Staff beads and weight separators.

Simple planing thicknessing and routering.

Client Approval

This was the first time Wendy could get a proper idea what they will look like.

RESULT! yeah.

Making the horns

As the rebates are so deep I filled them in by gluing blocks. One for the rebate and one to get the overall depth the same as when the "bead pieces are fitted.

Then I cut the horn shape with my jig saw. This is far from ideal as the longest blades only just manage it. The blade wandered of perpendicular towards the bottom of the cut and it needed a sanding to get the shape right.

However, it worked out well enough.

Now ready for assembly check

With the parts cut and drilled its all ready for an assembly check.

I screwed blocks on cill to make sure the pulley stiles where square before pilot drilling. These will be removed before gluing.

I used 3" No. 8 for the outside and inside lining and 4" N0 10's for the pulley stiles. Pilot drilled for the full screw length, going in to end grain I didn't want anything splitting.

The top rail fitted nicely, just pulling a bit twist in pulley stile back in to shape.

With this fitted I could mark up and cut the top linings.

The top linings are fitted with blocks, crude but effective.

I glued and screwed the blocks on, after marking up on the frame. I used a rule to make sure they where on straight.

So that's it (ish) for the frame. Picture to follow....

Almost Ready for Frame Assembly

With all the pieces cut it's all ready for for an assembly check. But a little more first.

Mark out and drill the screw holes in cill.

Machine out notches in the outside lining, these will stop water pooling where they meet the cill.

Round of any sharp outside edges.

Why? - It is said, and I can believe it, paint doesn't like staying on 90 degree angles. Recommendations are to chamfer corners or round off.

Remember to stop the rounding off:-

1. On the cill where the outside lining will meet.

2. On the outside lining where the outside rail will butt up.

3. While the router's set up do the sash pieces where possible as well - time travel - step now....

I should have rounded off the notched in the outside lining as well.

Setting the Frame Width

The inside width of the frame is determined by the width of of sashes + clearance of 4mm. I marked this on cill and added the thickness off the pulley stile to give me the size of notches I needed to cut.

I cut these by hand. These extend the slope of cill, though the upstand to the width of the inside lining from the back of cill.

From this I could mark up the top frame rail, using the outer edge of the notch.

Cutting the slot to take the tongue of pulley stile using the cross fence, to the inside of the line.

Then (with hindsight) I should have cut the top rail ends to suit fit the outer rebate of the linings and slot the ends to fit the weight seperator. I realised later and ended up with this:-

I've also marked it up for drilling.

Pulley Stile Tops

To make sure the frame will fit the sashes, first check what the two sashes add up to. Rather than just rely on what they should be, why not glue the sashes up and work empirically.

A lot of things to remember from this picture.

1. I planed up two pieces square and flat and bolted them on the router table top. This gives me a flat frame to assemble the sashes on.

2. My cheap " Forged Steel" sash cramps are cheap for a reason, the adjustable back stops don't stay square to bar. Hence twist the rail when clamping. I need to drill, tap and put screws in to stop the movement. Or pack out with flat bladed screw drivers like I did this time.

3. Next time I'll chamfer the end of tenons so they don't push too much of the glue out of mortises.

4. After clamping pressure to close up joints, back off so the stiles aren't bent. Then check they're square.

5. Fox wedges do seem to work. Applying compression but without moving the joint

6. I can assemble and clamp up quick enough to work with PU adhesive.

(Time Travel - Round of the edges I can at before assembly - at the same time as the otside lining, cill and top lining rail, but first know the height, Oh No! chicken and egg time loop. Dr. please help?)

With the sashes glued up I clamped them as they'll be when closed and measured them. Then went back to the paper calculations. I'm glad I checked as I'd not accounted for a rebate on the bottom of the BS Bottom rail (Note: adjust cut list). Apart from that I was only about 1mm out. I'm happy with that.

Adding a 2mm clearance I then knew the height of pulley stile. These then needed cutting with a 5mm tongue added on.

To make sure they both ended up the same height I clamped them together with the bottom ends together. Then the top ends are machined square leaving the tongues.

Cutting the box bottoms

The fitting of the boxes to cill is another departure from traditional designs, where the pulley stiles are set in to the cill and wedged. Thsi is point that is most likely to rot so I'm butt jointing with screws from underneath. Apparently this is common Scandinavian practice and I can see the benefits in theory.

The butting up needs to be accurate, for a good joint and to keep the frame straight.

First to get the angle on the pulley stile. I tried to get the angle from cill. Then cut with the mitre saw. Notice, I said tried.....

I then used the angled ends to set the mitre saw to cut the bottom of the outside lining.

So I thought I could cut it all nice, accurate and neat.

If I had a quality mitre saw this should have worked. The one I've got is OK for floor boards etc. but I've decided not stable enough for this kind job.

Plan B. Another little jig

Using a trimming off the end of the cill this jig works this way round for the outside lining and at 90 degrees against the cross fence to trim the pulley stiles.
I trimmed the inside lining on the table as well, so all the bottoms of the boxes are bang on.

Groove for parting beads

First mark up which edges are going to be the outside edges. With these edges against the fence rout the grooves. As I've not got a 8mm bit I needed two cuts with my 6.35mm.

Pulley stiles and top rail , cut 1 (half top rail minus 4mm). Cut 2. move the fence to make an 8mm slot. Using the fence with the extra bit added that runs on the rebate ensures the grooves will line up.

Bed time

Flatening a new piece

I've just mentioned the top rail of frame. The piece I had planed up perfectly to size, on closer inspection had a twist in it. Rather than try and work round it I picked another piece of rough sawn of the shelf. "It'll not take two minutes to plane up".

This had a twist in it as well, But with 25mm to plane down to 22mm I could use it. Hence another simple jig. I found another length that was flat and skimmed it smooth in the thicknesser. Made a couple of really thin long wedges on the bench saw.

Screwed the new piece on to the flat board, from the back, just at the ends and supported the twisted up sides with the wedges. Then sent the whole lot through the thicknesser.

Result one flat face. Flipped over and faced the other side, hence two flat sides.

Weight Boxes

Each side of the frame is made of three parts, Outside lining, Inside lining and the Pulley stile. These fit together with a tongue on each side of the pulley stile that fit in to a groove in the linings.

I've tried to come up with a method here to make them accurately with the least number of measurements.

Grooves in the outside lining and inside linings. First another fence for the router table so I can use just the one face to make all the cuts. the standard fence doesn't move back far enough to do this.

The inside linings need a groove 5.5mm deep with the side furthest from the face edge being the same as the thickness of the pulley stile.

The outside lining groove has it's closest side being 20mm from the face edge. I've made a 20mm wide stick to use as gauge, its also used in the next step.

The backs of the boxes will have a plywood cover fitting in to a rebate 5.5 x 6mm.

First the Outside lining. Move the fence back so the same face edge can be used, I ended up clamping the fence to a handle on the table, very Heath Robo.

Remember as I'm using the other side of cutter - Feed from Left to Right

Then with the same fence setting use the 20mm stick to pack out the Inside linings from the fence.

On to the Pulley stiles - These need rebating on each edge to make the tongues. The first rebate is easy enough. The tongue wants to be 5mm long.

The rebate on the other edge wants to be referenced from the rebate just cut. Doing it this way means I only need one good edge when I'm planing up - So another fence modification.

I added a piece to the top the fence that run on the inside of rebate. The width between the new fence and the cutter is set to width of the top rail. eg. cill - inside lining - outside lining.

Just had a couple a glasses of wine so apologies if linguist capability levels are dropping......

I was sober when I made them hence results bang on.

Cill- Profile cutting, the best way I could come up with

I spent ages thinking how I could easily and acurately machine the the slope required on the cill. (Thanks for the suggestions folks).

I ended up making a simple surfacing table to use with the router. This has two rails bolted to the router table top to guide the router that sits in a cradle. I used it first flat, to get rid of bit of a twist in the cill then added a batton to one of rails to give me slope.

The cradle is simple enough but took a bit of thinking through to get fence to work.


Next time I'll take a most of the material off with a rough cut first. As I went deeper it got a bit heavy going and took a lot small cuts.

The result was good with only a few slight tramlines, I've improve the router to cradle clamp to hopefully eliminate this next time.

Just for the record the timber is held with a screw at each end clamping it down on to wedges.

Drainage and Ventilation on the Sashes

Nearly forgot, The drainage and ventilation for the space around the sealed units. This goes on the TS Meeting rail and BS Bottom rail.

First drill the holes, a little difficult on the BS Bottom rail as the stroke on my drill press isn't long enough. So I did it in two stages and added a packer for the second stage. Then router the groove in, this should allow any water that gets past the seals to find the hole and drain away.

Credit Dave - clamp a same height as the top of the rebate, use a low fence (to avoid the clamps )on the router table - easy, cheers Dave.

Re-assembled result

Sashes nearly done, on to the frame

I thinks that's all the work done on the sashes for now. There will be more to do after they are glued up.
Do I dip the ends in preserver first? Or maybe even get the parts pressure treated?
Do I use PVA or PU ?

Decisions, decisions!

After gluing the joint end will need trimming, the sides machining for the sash cords, notches cutting for the parting beads, a 5mm rebate on the bottom of the BS.

I need to think about cutting the horns as well. I'll need to fill in the rebate in horn (traditionally the rebate upstand is cut off below the bottom rail, but these rebates are BIG). If I had the cutters I could do them on the router bench, I'll check what I can do with my set, otherwise it will be a job for the jigsaw and a bit sanding.

However now I've got the sashes and they ended up the right size. I can confidently start on the box frame. The starting point here is the Cill, cutting the slope on it, with an upstand is proving interesting... details to follow.

Top Sash side beads

These are easy as the bottoms are a straight cut to face up to the TS Bb/meeting rail.


Clamp up the TS, place the beads on, mark up the side beads and cut.

Ops... just looking at picture, somethings not right. I've cut the rebate in end of the TS Bb/meeting rail at the wrong side. Luckily most of the wrong rebate will be cut away for the parting bead to fit and the rest wont be visable.... phew.

Bottom Sash Side and Top beads

These need measuring to get the height of the bead. Rather then use a tape I assembled the bottom sash and clamped it up.

With a 5mm packer under the bottom of the BS Bb place the side beads on the sash.

Using the top bead as guide, mark where the mitre needs to go. All things being equal the other side should be exactly the same, so the mark can be transferred across.

Cut the mitres off on morticer and router off the excess( as previous step, and all the tooling should still be set up right).

Using the sides, mark up the width of BS Tb

These can then be cut using the the table saw.

The Mating mitre cuts in beads

These mitres are in from the ends and so need a different method.

TS Tb and BS Bb - both ends (These are the ones cut to size with the rebate across the ends)

Mark them out using the mitred ends cut in the previous step.

Then set up the Morticer with the chisel at 45 degrees to the fence. A bit of faffing as the fence needs setting to the right distance as well and it wobbles a bit when clamping.

With the point of the chisel just a smidgen (getting technical) back from the edge of the moulding, make the cut. I found ,when pressures applied the curved end on the chisel pulls the piece in a bit, hence the smidgen.

It makes a good quick clean cut at bang on 45 degrees. There was just a little nib to take of as the chisel wasn't quite wide enough.

Using the end of the router with the bead flat against the fence take the excess moulding off. There's a little bit on flat that needs cleaning with a chisel.

The finished joints mate up well. I should be able cut the mitres on the Stiles and Rails in the same way.

First mitre cuts on the beads

A bit more jigging required to make up for rubbish wobbly guide that came with the saw.

First, a cross cut guide, a piece of ply bolted and screwed on the slider bar. And a 45degree angle cut on the guide I made for the router table.

Cut mitres of the ends of BS Lb and Rb, ST Lb and Rb

Mark across from where the mitre cuts the end of the moulding and cut at 90 degrees. Ending up with it bang on like this:-

Rebates In the Beads for Brush Seals

The beads also take the brush seals so a rebate is needed to take the carriers.

The TS Tb and BS Bb are 2mm deeper than the carrier so the pile of the brushes don't get crushed flat when the sashes are shut.

All the side bead rebates are are as deep as the carrier, I'm aiming for 2mm clearance each side between the sash and frame.

CUT the BS Bb, TS Tb and TS Bb to width using the width stick from earlier.

Then rebate the ends of these.

Note: Don't be a dummy a second time. Cut the rebate on the TS Bb on side opposite the brush groove. (not shown in picture)

You can see here I've made a 90 degree angle block to do these rather than have to set up the cross slide.