Sliding Sash Bow Window Repair

[meccarroll]

It does raise the question of whether this type of work will ever be anything but a labour of love in the future. Whenever I've done stuff I've always slightly regretted getting involved as it's impossible to come out on top financially with all the one off jigs etc. Cnc is making much curved work cheaper and less dangerous though.

You are absolutly right about labour of love, but then getting paid for doing something you absolutly enjoy doing is not such a bad thing either.

Initially I felt I'd priced the job rather high but in the end I just ended up making a very modest profit.

I do have a CNC machine which I purchased for making templates but don't think it would considerabully improve the finincial outcome of this project.

 

[Diver Fred]

My late father would have been pleased to see your work on that window. As a time served C&J he was never that happy making or repairing sliding sash windows. He made many casement windows including several curved ones.

Well done for taking that job on and making such a good job.

 

[meccarroll]

Marking out the stiles was done sraight from a rod (a lot simpler than marking out the curved top and bottom rails). I first mark one stile out from the rod then transfare the marks across several stiles at once.

I like to use crayons to indicate the mould and rebate.Red for the mould and blue for the rebate I find it makes identification when machining a lot easier and quicker because you don't have to keep checking that you have the correct side because the colour makes it instantly obvious.

The horns were a little fancy, I used a bandsaw to cut them to shape then cleaned them up with sandpaper.

The meeting rail needed a groove to bed the glass in rather than a rebate and I used a router in a bench for this operation.

Once all of the sahsh compenents were mortice, tenoned and moulded I could start assenbly. All of the joints at the mould side were hand scribed, the pencil in the picture indicates where the stop scibe ended.

You cut the mould off below the pencil mark and chop what is left into the rail.

And the final cramp up stage after fitting all of the joints. You may notice I had to make special blocks where the cramps appy pressure on the curved sash. Virtually every operation involved making some sort of template or jig.

 

[schnapps95]

Hi all just thought I'd post this out of interest, it's a bow window I was asked to repair some time ago.

I have made several circular window and door frames etc but this was the first time I was asked to repair a bow window. It had been repaired before but not very well.

View attachment 196816

As you can see it had a lot of rust patches showing on the bottom rails of the sashes where someone had nailed strips of hardboard on to cover the rot before the window had a re-paint.


View attachment 196817

The first thing I did was take out the sashes for referance and make a template of the window using strips of thin plywood etc.

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Here is a picture of the sashes I had to replace:

View attachment 196820

I had to be careful taking the glass out because I had been quoted £700 for each piece of glass if it needed to be replaced. They said if they had to make new curved sheets of glass they would not guarantee it would be the exact same curve.
View attachment 196821

I made an onsite template of the bow using strips of ply. This was set on a sheet of ply on the workbench and from there I made a trammel to mark out the components such as Cill, staff bead etc.


View attachment 196819

View attachment 196823

It would normally be called a Oriel bay window the last time we made a semi circular one we had to supply a template to the glass supplier and they then heated the glass till it bent to the template we did'nt see this being done but every piece fit spot-on I would have queried the price of £700 or got a quote from another supplier. We like those kind of jobs because they are a challenge and it keeps the brain active

 

[meccarroll]

My late father would have been pleased to see your work on that window. As a time served C&J he was never that happy making or repairing sliding sash windows. He made many casement windows including several curved ones.

Well done for taking that job on and making such a good job.

The first firm I worked for did a lot of small works such as bathroom extensions, pub refurbishments and repair works, repairing sliding sash windows in the properties always formed part of the works. It was seen as a boys job and as I was the youngest I was given the repairs to do. It sounds like your late father was a very skilled man who you can be very proud of.

 

[meccarroll]

It would normally be called a Oriel bay window the last time we made a semi circular one we had to supply a template to the glass supplier and they then heated the glass till it bent to the template we did'nt see this being done but every piece fit spot-on I would have queried the price of £700 or got a quote from another supplier. We like those kind of jobs because they are a challenge and it keeps the brain active

Interesting I just looked up the term Oriel Bay Window and the general construction of the window I worked on would fall in to that description so thank you for that. I am still in contact with the client so will see if he is aware of the term.

The glass quote was from a glass supplier in Norwich (Norfolk), I could not obtain a quote locally at the time Lowestoft (Suffolk). They did say that the glass would have to be heated to bend it but also said when it cooled down it might change shape slightly so would not guarantee an exact replica. The three glass sheets I took out was about 6mm thick each one slightly different but not so it made any real difference.