Sash windows advice

[jurassic86]

Hello

Someone has recently made me same replacement sash windows and i am a little concerned with the finish on them.

Is it normal to see gaps either side of the vertical window bars?

He did say they needed some finishing before paint which we did, but after the painter give me them back I've noticed gaps which I'm not sure should be there.

They have been mortice and tennoned into the rail, so can't understand why the gaps present?

Other corners have what looks like glue, which either needs a chisel to remove or some turps.

Any advice on how to remove?

 

[toolsntat]

No gaps should be visible.
The "finishing" was the responsibility of the maker to provide a perfect product unless you agreed otherwise.
Painting was premature.

Can be sorted easily by properly gluing in slips of wood.
Glue which is still visible on surfaces needs scraping/chiseling off, don't try to dissolve it.

Is that a gap between glass and timber?
In any case painting should be touching the glass.

Hope this guides you a little.
Cheers, Andy

 

[HOJ]

They do look rough, certainly joints should have been neater and not sloppy, "joiner" should have made them good even if as @toolsntat said
they had popped some slips to fill in the gaps, I am surprised painter didn't clean them up, rather than just paint over the glue, but then some only paint what they have.

Is it new glass fitted or salvaged? doesn't look quite right either.

 

[niall Y]

In the part of London where I used to live, there was a firm who made sash windows very cheaply. They were thrown together using whitewood, the joints were poor and the surface had a lot of woolly and torn grain. The local builders loved them, as they were cheap and a proficient decorator could easily disguise any shortcomings.

I would expect a joinery firm to have supplied a product that did not need a lot of filling. unless the items were very under priced. Joiners often describe their products as paint quality, so there will be a small amount of making good. However these items usually come fully primed.

As for the painter, well he clearly isn't very good at his job. He should have filled the gaps before painting. Did he somehow think that the paint would do it for him?

 

[deema]

Oh dear, I’m guessing the joiner and painter haven’t much wool on their backs! (Youngsters not taught properly through a proper apprenticeship) So, as stated there shouldn’t be large gaps around the motices, and you would expect excess glue to have been removed and sanded to 120 grit assuming the spec was finished ready for paint. The painter should find a new career, as they haven’t a c,use what they are doing, that paint job is worse than appalling. Onky a blind blithering idiot would paint over glue lumps, leave runs / paint pools in the corners.

It looks to me as though security tape had been used to hold the glass on the inshore, in which case the tape isn’t painted.

 

[scholar]

This does look very poor all round, both the making of the windows and the painting.

It looks like the mouldings have been done very badly with tear out on this ovolo.

The glazing also looks very poorly installed, but the images are not very clear.

It is difficult to say what is the best thing to do now as presumably you have paid both the joiner and the painter. Ideally you would start again, but that may not be feasible so the next best thing is a complete clean up/scrape/strip where necessary/rub down/fill with wood where sensible and two-pack filler otherwise/check glazing bedding and beading etc/repaint.

It’s a big job to do it properly and I would find it soul-destroying having to do this on new work.

 

[jurassic86]

I think the painting looks worse on the closeups than it does in real life.

Painter openly admits the glue needed to be removed but was unable to get it off with a sander and didn't not want to damage the glass.

They were primed when we got them so the glue wasn't so obvious until the gloss went on.

Out of interest is there a reason the gaps are there? I e. Is it because the holes were made too big in the first place or they didn't align ?

 

[johnnyb]

Looks like they have made the mortice a touch to wide. Not an issue but should have been filled. Set the stops on the morticer ffs.

 

[Doug71]

It all just looks scruffy and rushed. A bit of sanding, scraping, filling and repaint should sort them out, but you shouldn't have to be doing that on new work.......

 

[Against_The_Grain]

It’s fairly common practice to make the glazing bar mortices slightly wider than the glazing bar as if you make them too tight no matter how good your setup is you will have a hard time lining up the bars with each other, wonky bars are far more noticeable than a gap which is easily filled. Typically any gaps will be filled after initial cleanup of the glue but this all depends on where you got them from and what the arrangement was yourself and the manufacturer.

Anywhere you’re going to be buying unfinished woodwork from, particularly online vendors via the likes of eBay, is going to be a relatively low quality because their market is people who want the cheapest product possible, therefore no time will be spend on unnecessary finishing such as sanding the moulder marks from the mouldings or filling any gaps, as shown.

If you’ve only paid £250 a sash, I would say that’s about right for the level of quality and you really have no leg to stand on and moan, but if you’ve paid £500 a sash and you still need a painter and decorator, that’s a problem.

 

[toolsntat]

Key question for you to consider....
Does the person hanging these for you understand what they are doing as it may well be that they are now too heavy for the old weights?
Cheers, Andy

 

[johnnyb]

£250 a sash! I doubt that would cover the glass.

 

[Against_The_Grain]

£250 a sash! I doubt that would cover the glass.

Don’t be ridiculous, they’re only single glazed and even if they were double glazed the glass would only be about £30-50 per sash maximum if you have a good trade tariff with your glass supplier unless you’re going for slimline heritage glass. One-time and low volume customers usually end up paying two to three times the trade rate for glass as compared to a larger operation.

Those sashes would realistically only take a couple of hours total to produce if you’re set up for that kind of work, especially if you’re not spending any time on the finishing aspect.


Softwood = £20
Glass = £15 for single glazing
Labour = 2 hours @ £75 an hour, £150
Profit = £65

 

[johnnyb]

But there sapele and I can't see how there glazed tbh. But I'd suggest a visit to any glass merchant with £15 will result in you getting enough putty to do the job(maybe). 2 hours making and glazing is fairly optimistic. Maybe if your set up only to be making sashes with stock already in.
I'm not being argumentative just putting over my reality. Yours of course may be different.

 

[Against_The_Grain]

But there sapele and I can't see how there glazed tbh. But I'd suggest a visit to any glass merchant with £15 will result in you getting enough putty to do the job(maybe). 2 hours making and glazing is fairly optimistic. Maybe if your set up only to be making sashes with stock already in.
I'm not being argumentative just putting over my reality. Yours of course may be different.

You need to stop thinking in terms of a one-man band or small bespoke workshop, there’s no way these people can compete with inexpensive factory-produced sashes like these, they’ll have blown the budget just spending the time setting up their machines for the job. Where I’ve worked and operated workshops previously we were producing thousands of similar sashes in a year, with a large portion of them going to mainland Europe, France in particular. When you only thing you need to change the lengths of timber, you can produce masses very quickly.

I cannot see any indication of them being sapele, but even so they would not be much more expensive for it.

As said, there are massively different tariff bands with glazing suppliers, if you’re spending thousands a month with them you will be on a good tariff because you’re supplying alarge amount work compared to weekend bodger Dave who buys a few panes in a year, the mark up on glass is astronomical unless you have a good tariff and relationship with your supplier.

 

[Ollie78]

That is a shambles all round, there should be no gaps and the paint is awful.

 

[jurassic86]

We have replaced weights (addons) to handle new sashes. 2lb under and over for top and bottom.

They come out at about £775 a pair, primed but not painted.

Glazing is toughened glass (4mm I think) but could be 6. We can't get double glazing in the sashes.

How's best way to remove that glue? My sand paper won't touch it.

 

[Doug71]

How's best way to remove that glue? My sand paper won't touch it.

I would try a sharp chisel.

 

[HOJ]

the painting looks worse on the closeups than it does in real life.

To be honest it doesn't look very smart from here:



I would suggest you get them fitted, you never know, they might!

 

[Against_The_Grain]

We have replaced weights (addons) to handle new sashes. 2lb under and over for top and bottom.

They come out at about £775 a pair, primed but not painted.

Glazing is toughened glass (4mm I think) but could be 6. We can't get double glazing in the sashes.

How's best way to remove that glue? My sand paper won't touch it.

2lbs under and over is way too much, you'll have the sashes closing by themselves unless you have a serious amount of resistance due to tight draught sealing. You want about a half-pound on each sash, nothing more.

£775 or £387.50 each is about right for that level of work when it's pre-primed as that adds more time and primer obviously. I can see now I missed a photo and that they are indeed sapele as @johnnyb says. It's easy to get double-glazing into standard single-glazed boxes, you need to rebate the faces of the sashes so that it goes around the staff beads and internal case molding.

I wouldn't complain about the quality of the work for the price paid.