cutting a hunched mortise and tenon with classic machinery for window sash

[jack forsberg]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=6atmFM-ejjU

[Andrew Joiner]

Thanks Jack. Almost like being in your shop for a bit. A real treat.

[Charles Coolidge]

DROOL...that's all that needs saying.

[Loren Woirhaye]

Hey Jack, there's a Wadkin overarm router up for auction staring at $100. California.

[Tom M King]

Good stuff Jack!! You have some Nice toys.

You might like looking at an exact reproduction run we did of some 1780s window sash. We have some videos of the process taken, but not edited and put together yet. You can see the process, and some of the finished products, on my "Windows" page on my website. www.HistoricHousePreservation.com (http://www.HistoricHousePreservation.com)

[jack forsberg]

thanks guys

Tom that's great work on your site thanks for sharing. Mine is not a reproduction in any way or style. its does use the old glass and very thin baring of 9/16". its what we do for sash that is like this 48 around one with complex divided lites.

[Mel Fulks]

Tom, nice looking sash. Having been involved in making them,I have to disagree the muntins can't be pre coped. IMO the best way to make them accurately is with the old sticker machines ,it's more difficult using shapers. I know of ONE 18th century American sash in a museum collection that was made with the bars long in both directions and then lapped.
have you come across a building with that construction?

[Tom M King]

Jack, around here, they went down to 9/16ths sometime after the 1820s, as far as I've seen.

Mel, I didn't say they couldn't be pre-coped, but with the old Heart Pine, there is no such thing as an interference fit. In order to make exact reproductions, keeping faithful joinery, with the exception of the one invisible structural change, I believe the way we did it was the best way. With dedicated router tops set up to make the two different copes, it really wasn't much trouble. For example on the 6 and 9 lite sash, we did completely make the middle muntins first, but the outters were individually fitted, and with the system we used, it really didn't take that much longer.

I tried making some by precutting everything, but couldn't get a perfect fit at all the joints. The Heart Pine is very brittle and unforgiving. It they were made out of almost anything else, it could have been a different story. This was really nice stuff though, and the pictures really don't do them justice. You might see an open joint in one of the pictures of the finished sash, but they haven't been clamped and pegged yet in those pictures.

We weren't trying to do it fast and cheap, but the best job we could do. Of course there are machines to do it faster a different way, but every joint at every intersection of the originals was a fitted mortise and tenon, and that's the way we made them.

I came up with a repeatable way to drawbore the main mortises, but only by a few thousandths using two sheets of paper as the spacer for the offset. About half of the remaining originals had failed over time because of too aggressive drawboring in the quartersawn wood.


All sash that I've seen around here were made almost exactly like the ones we reproduced, including the big through mortise in the full length bars, all the way through the 19th Century. The sash did get gradually thicker, and the muntins narrower, but otherwise the joinery was the same. I haven't seen a house pre20th with sash made by a relisher around these parts.

[Mel Fulks]

The lapped sash I referred to is made the way Charles Heyward showed in his book on joints . I'm told its more of an English thing. I saw no gaps in your work ,and being a gentleman never assume someone to be incompetent. Made heart
pine sash many times coping all on single end tenon machine and sticking on a real sticker. Since most have gone to thermo pane type windows many of the stickers have been junked. But they can still be found and are still the best way to
make sash. With a sticker you don't depend on accurate s4s stock and the bars rest on a beefy iron table. Cut is made with
4 inch square head.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

It's a blast to watch your shop in action Jack, thanks for posting. Is that the same machine as your chain mortiser?

Tom, great work, fun to learn a few details of how you pros do these things.

[jack forsberg]

It's a blast to watch your shop in action Jack, thanks for posting. Is that the same machine as your chain mortiser?


Yes that is the same mortiser with the chisel head in. I made a router head for it this winter to do slots too so its a chain /chisel/ routor mortiser.

Tom i do like the thin bars. i find that to be the most pleasing to my eye. Mel you every use the guillotine ground pastern choppers for copes? I believe they were for the oval baring copes.

[Mel Fulks]

Not familiar with those,Jack.

[Lornie McCullough]

Beautiful work. Beautiful Shop.

Lornie

[jack forsberg]

Not familiar with those,Jack.


http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad111/tool613/wadkin/choper_zps76970966.jpg (http://s927.photobucket.com/user/tool613/media/wadkin/choper_zps76970966.jpg.html)

http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad111/tool613/wadkin/cgopper2_zpsa41695bc.jpg (http://s927.photobucket.com/user/tool613/media/wadkin/cgopper2_zpsa41695bc.jpg.html)

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks ,Jack. I do remember those now. We used them mainly for "diamond light ". Didn't make many.

[jack forsberg]

here is a bit on them for those at home

http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=9824




Thanks ,Jack. I do remember those now. We used them mainly for "diamond light ". Didn't make many.

[Rod Sheridan]

Congratulations Jack, you've gone to an enormous amount of effort and time to avoid buying a Domino.

Actually, thanks for the video tour, I enjoyed it very much, hoping to make it out this July to meet you...............Regards, Rod.

[jack forsberg]

and it only cost me 1/3 the price. LOL O course my Time is not worth a dam. See ya at the Great Canadian Rust Junky Fest.


Congratulations Jack, you've gone to an enormous amount of effort and time to avoid buying a Domino.

Actually, thanks for the video tour, I enjoyed it very much, hoping to make it out this July to meet you...............Regards, Rod.

[Rod Sheridan]

and it only cost me 1/3 the price. LOL O course my Time is not worth a dam. See ya at the Great Canadian Rust Junky Fest.

Really looking forward to it..........Rod.