# Quick question about sash moulding planes



## steve355 (2 Jun 2021)

Hi

I want to make some window sashes by hand. The moulding planes seem to be 5/8 by 1 1/2 inches. What dimension is the 1 1/2? I guess it is the width of the glazing bar? But this seems very wide for a glazing bar.

thanks
Steve


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

If you look at a horizontal glazing bar in a window. The 5/8 is the total length of the ovolo from front of bar to the top fillet vertical edge


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

and the 1 1/2 is the total minimum depth of the glazing bar including the glazing fillet.

Not the thickness of the glazing bar, as that would look clunky. A 3/4" thick glazing bar is quite elegant.


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## steve355 (2 Jun 2021)

Adam W. said:


> and the 1 1/2 is the total minimum depth of the glazing bar including the glazing fillet.
> 
> Not the thickness of the glazing bar, as that would look clunky.



Aha, thanks, that makes sense. What width would the glazing bar typically be?


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

3/4" looks nice and slim any thinner and the front fillet gets too narrow for me.

Don't forget to chamfer your glazing bar before you cut the moulding, otherwise you'll be there all day and it'll wear your iron edge to fast.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

And on the front, glass side, it goes 1/4" gazing rebate, 1/4" fillet, 1/4" glazing rebate. then you get a nice thin putty fillet when looking from the outside.

And you need to make a sticking board to stick the glazing bars on, otherwise you'll have a fun time keeping hold of them when you plane them.

You can also go down to 5/8", but I think that's pushing it although it's nice and thin.


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## Jacob (2 Jun 2021)

My standard sash detail was 14mm glazing bar with 2 x 5mm rebate and 4mm web. 44mm deep (ex 2").
I didn't make this up it was after looking at a lot of Georgian and Victorian windows in small houses. Bigger houses had bigger windows often with bigger details. Thinnest glazing bars ever were 1/2" which would work out as rebate/web/rebate 4x4x4mm.
There are lots of variations around a common overall design.
Your chunky 3/4" bar would most likely be on late Victorian/Edwardian with large panes. Small paned windows thinner, glass itself sometimes down to 2mm.
Finest of all had the web chamfered to a point - effectively about 2mm.
PS I didn't use moulding planes at all, made my own spindle cutters to match any particular profile. By hand the mouldings alone would have increased the work several times over!
Would be interesting to compare hand only work with machine productivity. I'd guess TS + PT + spindle would be 10 times faster. In other words one man (me) instead of a shop with 10 happy joiners thrashing away!


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## steve355 (2 Jun 2021)

So if a moulding plane (or sash shave) is 1 1/2 inch or 1 3/4 inch it doesn’t actually make any difference then? the Preston sash shaves come in both sizes, at 5/8 inch, it seems. Or does this mean that the ovolo profile on the 1 3/4 is deeper/longer? (If you know what I mean)


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

@ Jacob True, but I live in a farm house, not a swanky Georgian town house.

And for your pair of sash planes you'll have a pair of sash templates to go with them.

No.1 plane is for the pointy template on the right and no.2 plane is for the other one.


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## steve355 (2 Jun 2021)

Cool!


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

And furthermore on closer inspection the pointy template is called 5/8 and fits a 5/8" glazing bar.

No.178 is the pattern for the profile of the moulding and I might be talking out of the back of my head about the size of the ovolo. Thinking about it, I probably am. 

No.178 5/8 1 would match the template on the right and 5/8" would be the size of the glazing bar stock.
No. 178 5/8 2 would do whatever you want.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

steve355 said:


> So if a moulding plane (or sash shave) is 1 1/2 inch or 1 3/4 inch it doesn’t actually make any difference then? the Preston sash shaves come in both sizes, at 5/8 inch, it seems. Or does this mean that the ovolo profile on the 1 3/4 is deeper/longer? (If you know what I mean)



You'll need to post a photo.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

Jacob said:


> Snip....
> PS I didn't use moulding planes at all, made my own spindle cutters to match any particular profile. By hand the mouldings alone would have increased the work several times over!
> Would be interesting to compare hand only work with machine productivity. I'd guess TS + PT + spindle would be 10 times faster. In other words one man (me) instead of a shop with 10 happy joiners thrashing away!
> /snip



I would imagine these things were run up in 12' lengths on a monster sticking board. It'd be quite quick, but a machine would be faster.


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## Jacob (2 Jun 2021)

Adam W. said:


> I would imagine these things were run up in 12' lengths on a monster sticking board. It'd be quite quick, but a machine would be faster.


I'd guess cut to length first and then mould - much the same as I would do in small machine shop.
One thing that puzzled me about old glazing rebates was often finding what looked like a machine mark - as though passed through rollers as on a planer machine. Found out what they were when I had a go with hand rebate plane - if you work them fast and hard the blades chatter and leave a very regular pattern as they zip along. Wouldn't matter in a glazing rebate as would be out of sight.
Another mystery solved was marking knife marks. Only ever on one side of a piece, the other 3 with pencil. I reckon the top man would do the knife marks from a rod, which would be indelible, and the bench hand would then take them around with a pencil


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

I did the cut to length and stick by hand thing and it was impossible to hold onto the tiddly bars and also required endless tool changes, so now I stick it in a 10' length like I do with the picture frame stuff.

My process is, cut the rebates then plane the chamfer with a jack and stick the moulding. This only requires two tool changes for a lot of glazing bar and ensures that the glazing bars are all the same.

When I flip the bar over to stick the other side I put a shim under it on the sticking board so it doesn't move, but I would imagine that they would have had a fixed set of shims on the board for each step of the way.

No one bothered to write this stuff down, so it requires endless experimentation.


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## Jacob (2 Jun 2021)

Adam W. said:


> ....
> 
> No one bothered to write this stuff down, so it requires endless experimentation.


Forensic in fact!
Thats what makes lower priced old furniture more interesting - same techniques and procedures but they didn't cover their tracks so you can see the over-cuts, tool marks, mistakes and corrections.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

Houses too, full of tool marks and fingerprints from 1500.

If you're nice, I might show you my brick collection one day. Sounds dull, but it's far from it, especially when you hear the story about the man with the one legged stool.


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## Jacob (2 Jun 2021)

Adam W. said:


> Houses too, full of tool marks and fingerprints from 1500.
> 
> If you're nice, I might show you my brick collection one day. Sounds dull, but it's far from it, especially when you hear the story about the man with the one legged stool.


I did have a little collection of bricks which all had 4 finger prints on one side and a thumb print on the other. All slightly curved as they sagged when being picked up.
Thing about production methods - production lines weren't invented by Ford they go back to early days,"stone age axe factories" etc. Anybody having to make stuff anywhere would sort out the most efficient way of doing it as soon as possible, with continuity, specialisation etc.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

@Jacob No doubt about that and that's why I'm using those boxwood side gauges for sticking mouldings more than anyone else seems to talk about, they're just so much faster and more accurate than planing up to scribed or pencil lines.

They're not mentioned in Matt Bickfords book and Don McConnell talks about them on sprung mouldings, but why not use them everywhere, as they eliminate most of the modern measuring and fannying about.

I'm sure all these time saving things were always in tool boxes and workshops, but were discarded by later generations as the knowledge about what they did was lost.


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## Jacob (2 Jun 2021)

Adam W. said:


> @Jacob No doubt about that and that's why I'm using those boxwood side gauges for sticking mouldings more than anyone else seems to talk about, they're just so much faster and more accurate than planing up to scribed or pencil lines.
> 
> They're not mentioned in Matt Bickfords book and Don McConnell talks about them on sprung mouldings, but why not use them everywhere, as they eliminate most of the modern measuring and fannying about.
> 
> I'm sure all these time saving things were always in tool boxes and workshops, but were discarded by later generations as the knowledge about what they did was lost.


I did wonder what they were for exactly but yes I see they'd work as a really handy template while you are on the job.
Not needed by a machinist - I'd spend hours making the cutters and careful machine set up, then run miles of the stuff through in no time at all - everything coming out perfect. Cut to length first, usually morticed and tenoned (cheeks) already whilst in the square. Mouldings first then rebates. Best to do mouldings first whilst the workpiece still has plenty of flat face to register against the fence and the power feed.


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## Adam W. (2 Jun 2021)

Jacob said:


> I did wonder what they were for exactly but yes I see they'd work as a really handy template while you are on the job.
> Not needed by a machinist - I'd spend hours making the cutters and careful machine set up, then run miles of the stuff through in no time at all - everything coming out perfect. Cut to length first, usually morticed and tenoned (cheeks) already whilst in the square. Mouldings first then rebates. Best to do mouldings first whilst the workpiece still has plenty of flat face to register against the fence and the power feed.



After I've cut the rebates, I can stick the bar in a fence with a 1/4" groove in it, it holds the bar in place so the moulding can be stuck. The other side needs a shim because it flexes. Although there's bound to be a better way which I haven't thought about.


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