August 30, 2005

Follow havanaholly's Glencroft

Entry posted by Guest August 31, 2005

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Yesterday I made the windows from F-6 (the triple that goes in the left front window opening downstairs. Today I made the rest of them.

I took the four frame pices and stacked them together keeping the inner edges as even as possible, spring-clamped them on the sides and clamped them into the benchtop vise and sanded the inner edges smooth with an emeryboard sanding stick and the outer edges with the Dremel drum until they fit.

I also had to perform corrective surgery on each window opening to get the windows to fit AND work B)

Then I used the emeryboard to remove any "whiskers" from the edge corners and lay one pair of frames facedown and glued the acetate pieces to the backs.

The frames are numbered from the upper right wall window through the two left wall windows, F-1 through F-7; the corresponding acetate "glazing" is identified on the schematic sheet W-1 through W-7. I use regular white Elmer's glue because it dries clear & doesn't damage the acetate sheet in case of an "oopsie" (guess how I figured that one out? not on THIS house). I covered the glued frames with a piece of waxed paper and weighted them down and let the glue set for about an hour.

I cut a strip of chamois from one edge, 1/4" wide, and cut "hinges" from the strip; 1/2" lengths for windows hung vertically and 1" long for the F-3s that hang horizontally and were almost an "oopsie" because I was on a roll of gluing the "hinges" on the long edges of the frames and I was about to butcher the right gable window opening when I had the "DUH" moment and took the windows back apart (VERY carefully, I make those puppies to last forever!) and hinged them correctly. I glued a set of three "hinges" evenly spaced along the edge I want the window to open from and then I glued the other pair of frames on top and clamped them all around with spring clamps so that no gaps showed between the adjacent frame pieces.

After the glue had set (another hour or so) I glued on the window handles; after a half hour I took my fine-point awl and punched holes through the handle nail holes into the wood and attached the little 1/4' brass nails/ brads we love so well... I have a pair of fine-pointed tweezers I use to hold the little devils over the nailholes and an elderly dull flat chisel to coax the brad down into the hole. then I exchange the tweezers for the chisel and grab a hammer and hammer the chisel to set the nail.