Shaker Window Sash Profile

[James White]

Hellos All,

I need some help with some window sashes. I am tasked to build some window sashes for an interior partition wall between a pantry and kitchen for a client. I mistakenly offered a shaker profile. However it turns out the cutter set I was planing on using only goes to a max thickness of material of 7/8". I want the sashes to be 1-1/2" thick since they will have true divided light and are about 55" tall. So 7/8 would be too flimsy. For the life of me I cant find any sash/muntin cutters in a shaker profile. Is there some way to use the infinity cutter set I linked to make the sashes that I want? Do you know of a router bit set that will cut this thickness sash in a shaker profile?

https://infinitytools.com/products/3-pc-ultimate-glass-door-making-router-bit-set-5

[William Hodge]

Here's a profile from a shaker building.

519031

These are custom cutters, but the profile is a copy of an 1840's Shaker sash.

[Mel Fulks]

Try looking up Ovolo sash ,and cutters

[James White]

Thank you for that. However this is the profile I showed the client.
https://infinitytools.com/cdn/shop/files/91-526.5_3.webp?v=1705899330



Here's a profile from a shaker building.

519031

These are custom cutters, but the profile is a copy of an 1840's Shaker sash.

[John Kananis]

James, call and speak to the guys over at Whiteside. Awesome, knowledgeable folks over there and they're usually more than happy to make custom profiles (they used to at least).


Thank you for that. However this is the profile I showed the client.
https://infinitytools.com/cdn/shop/files/91-526.5_3.webp?v=1705899330

[John Kananis]

Also, you can always cut mortises for floating tenons prior to routing the profiles.

[James White]

Ya, I was thinking about using my domino with the trim stop jig I think its called. But I would need to do a mock up to see if it would work on the muntins.


Also, you can always cut mortises for floating tenons prior to routing the profiles.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

There are lots of windows pictured in the writings about the Shakers but I do not see a whole lot about sash construction.

519065 519066
https://www.shakers.org/schoolhouse-restoration-nearly-complete-at-canterbury-shaker-village/

https://www.traditionalbuilding.com/features/repairing-historic-wood-windows

[Tom M King]

James, call and speak to the guys over at Whiteside. Awesome, knowledgeable folks over there and they're usually more than happy to make custom profiles (they used to at least).

Whiteside only makes multiples of six of any custom bit now. There is a place just down the road from them that does make singles though. Hickory Saw and Tool. I haven't bought any is some years now, but I'd expect more than $300 each these days.

[John Kananis]

That's too bad, they were pretty accommodating about that a ways back.


Whiteside only makes multiples of six of any custom bit now. There is a place just down the road from them that does make singles though. Hickory Saw and Tool. I haven't bought any is some years now, but I'd expect more than $300 each these days.

[Tom M King]

They sent me to Hickory when they changed. They’re just as accommodating and bits just as good..

[Tom M King]

For just a few sash, I would just use a molding plane. I probably have ones for that size sash.

[James White]

There are five windows that are approximately 26x56. While the neander in me says yes. My neck and shoulders are saying heck no!


For just a few sash, I would just use a molding plane. I probably have ones for that size sash.

[Richard Coers]

The Shakers would not have decorated sash though. Bridal joints, or draw bore mortise and through tenon. The Historical Society I belong to owns a one room country schoolhouse. Still has the original draw bore sash in it, looks like Douglas Fir that had to have come in by steam train from the coast in 1861.
519145

[James White]

Thank you for your input. So the sashes would be square edged? Not even a bevel? What profile would be put on the glazing bars (muntins)?


The Shakers would not have decorated sash though. Bridal joints, or draw bore mortise and through tenon. The Historical Society I belong to owns a one room country schoolhouse. Still has the original draw bore sash in it, looks like Douglas Fir that had to have come in by steam train from the coast in 1861.
519145

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The Shakers would not have decorated sash though. Bridal joints, or draw bore mortise and through tenon. The Historical Society I belong to owns a one room country schoolhouse. Still has the original draw bore sash in it, looks like Douglas Fir that had to have come in by steam train from the coast in 1861.
519145

The out house looks as legit as everything else. That must be a two seater? Great images! My Mom owns the old school house in Wane County Iowa that she and grandma attended. I fantasize about saving it. I don't think it will happen. : (

[Kevin Jenness]

If you already sold the client on a profile a custom cutter set may be required. I recently had a pair of corrugated back shaper knives and a coping router bit for a door made by Ct Saw & Tool for about $500 delivered. https://ctsaw.com/

I suspect you would find a variety of sash profiles in Shaker buildings depending on era and location.

[Richard Coers]

Thank you for your input. So the sashes would be square edged? Not even a bevel? What profile would be put on the glazing bars (muntins)?
I'm sorry, I don't recall. This is a nice drawing of old window construction, but not shaker. https://thecraftsmanblog.com/all-about-historic-windows/
519157

[Richard Coers]

Looks like I am wrong. Appears to have a bevel on the inside based on windows in this restoration, but very hard to see. Very slim rails and stiles! https://www.shakers.org/schoolhouse-restoration-nearly-complete-at-canterbury-shaker-village/
519158

[Richard Coers]

The out house looks as legit as everything else. That must be a two seater? Great images! My Mom owns the old school house in Wane County Iowa that she and grandma attended. I fantasize about saving it. I don't think it will happen. : (
Two seater at two different heights for the wide range of grades and child sizes. There are trenches out the back for clean out, these were never moved. Also a second one for the boys.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The gentleman I worked for in Boston in 1981 used a Craftsman Crome Edge molding cutter on the table saw to make window sash. It took at least two passes. I don't remember how he did the cope & tenon. I do remember that it was tedious. The mortises were cut on the drill press with a hollow chisel. I made the sills, jambs, casings, built the cases, assembled & installed the windows but did not put the sash together. Several of these were triple hung and went right down to the floor to provide access to the back garden. They were a Victorian ancestor to the patio door. I wonder how they have held up over the years.

519159
P.S. The Shakers made Victorian furniture & woodwork too. Some is quite ornate.

[James White]

That is an interesting story, Maurice. Thank's for sharing it. I remember those Craftsman sets!

[James White]

Kevin,
I am not so sure they are sold on the profile I offered as much as the idea of having a shaker aesthetic vs the more ornate Ogee profile. I think they would be receptive to the Ovolo's simplicity. However so far I have not found an ovolo cutter set that can do 1.5" thick sashes. These are interior "partition" windows that will be a single sash 56"s tall so I want the muntins to have some rigidity.

CMT has the below set. However it does not specify the max thickness sash it can do.
https://www.cmtorangetools.com/na-en/industrial-router-bits/ovolo-sash-router-bit-sets

[Jim Becker]

The Shakers would not have decorated sash though. Bridal joints, or draw bore mortise and through tenon. The Historical Society I belong to owns a one room country schoolhouse. Still has the original draw bore sash in it, looks like Douglas Fir that had to have come in by steam train from the coast in 1861.

I agree with this, and not just for Shaker...the original window frames in the 250 year old portion of our former property were draw-bored, although the sashes I suspect were much newer and not drawbored. (I replaced those myself with fixed windows for efficiency) Drawbores have a nice advantage in that they need no other fasteners and properly done, don't need glue, either.

[Kevin Jenness]

Kevin,
I am not so sure they are sold on the profile I offered as much as the idea of having a shaker aesthetic vs the more ornate Ogee profile. I think they would be receptive to the Ovolo's simplicity. However so far I have not found an ovolo cutter set that can do 1.5" thick sashes. These are interior "partition" windows that will be a single sash 56"s tall so I want the muntins to have some rigidity.

CMT has the below set. However it does not specify the max thickness sash it can do.
https://www.cmtorangetools.com/na-en/industrial-router-bits/ovolo-sash-router-bit-sets

There isn't any maximum thickness with that set as it cuts only the profiled part of the sash bars. The glass rabbet must be cut with another tool with a straight profile like a rabbeting bit or dado head and can be as deep as you want. The problem is getting the right proportions relative to your desired thickness. The bead on the CMT set (really not an "ovolo" or egg shaped contour) is a 1/4" radius, so if you left a 1/16" quirk and a 1/4" uncut land for the mortises and tenons you would wind up with a 1 1/16" high x 1/4" deep glass rabbet in 1 1/2" stock. I am judging by eye that the cope cutter is designed for a 1/4" thick tenon though it is not called out. It seems thin to me; 3/8" to 1/2" would be better structurally but require a different coping tool. I leave it to you to decide what looks correct.

Personally I would opt for a taller, flatter true ovolo or a bevel, but it would probably require custom tooling. You could go with a square edge but that seems inelegant.

[James White]

Kevin,
I agree with your assessment regarding that ovolo looking too squashed. Interesting enough. They have a more normal looking ovolo cutter. However it is a 1/4" shank bit. That makes me concerned about cut quality.

https://www.amazon.com/CMT-855-308-11F-Female-64-Inch-Diameter/dp/B00DPE9PPO

https://www.amazon.com/CMT-855-307-11M-8-Inch-Diameter-4-Inch/dp/B00DPE9P86/ref=pd_bxgy_d_sccl_1/131-5328463-4204942?pd_rd_w=yNdKk&content-id=amzn1.sym.c51e3ad7-b551-4b1a-b43c-3cf69addb649&pf_rd_p=c51e3ad7-b551-4b1a-b43c-3cf69addb649&pf_rd_r=T9NSEPWZKEC6SV7SFQJB&pd_rd_wg=f4MEw&pd_rd_r=a49903b5-ae58-4403-9459-a2978cac06a0&pd_rd_i=B00DPE9P86&psc=1



There isn't any maximum thickness with that set as it cuts only the profiled part of the sash bars. The glass rabbet must be cut with another tool with a straight profile like a rabbeting bit or dado head and can be as deep as you want. The problem is getting the right proportions relative to your desired thickness. The bead on the CMT set (really not an "ovolo" or egg shaped contour) is a 1/4" radius, so if you left a 1/16" quirk and a 1/4" uncut land for the mortises and tenons you would wind up with a 1 1/16" high x 1/4" deep glass rabbet in 1 1/2" stock. I am judging by eye that the cope cutter is designed for a 1/4" thick tenon though it is not called out. It seems thin to me; 3/8" to 1/2" would be better structurally but require a different coping tool. I leave it to you to decide what looks correct.

Personally I would opt for a taller, flatter true ovolo or a bevel, but it would probably require custom tooling. You could go with a square edge but that seems inelegant.

[Tom M King]

There is no good reason to draw bore today's kiln dried wood. Most of the failed old windows I've worked on failed because the draw bored pin spelched the tenon out, especially if that particular rail was quarter sawn.

The good thing about pegged windows is that you can replace parts on 200 year old sash by driving the pegs out and taking it apart-see picture with replaced glazing bars in an 1798 sash.

I don't use glue in making reproduction 18th and 19th Century sash, shutters, or doors. The sash in this picture haven't been pegged yet, but weren't draw bored when they were.

Around here, all the remaining original 18th Century sash have 3/4" wide muntins. In the 19th Century houses they narrowed them to 5/8".

A molding plane is easy to use. You hog off most of the material to close to the profile with multiple passes on the table saw, and the molding plane just finishes. If you did a great job hogging with the table saw, the first couple of passes just takes off strings, and then a pass or two of very thin shavings to finish.

The size of this job is pretty close to break even between custom cutters and doing them by hand.

[James White]

Thank you, Tom

so what profile was used on those 3/4 inch muntins?


There is no good reason to draw bore today's kiln dried wood. Most of the failed old windows I've worked on failed because the draw bored pin spelched the tenon out, especially if that particular rail was quarter sawn.

The good thing about pegged windows is that you can replace parts on 200 year old sash by driving the pegs out and taking it apart-see picture with replaced glazing bars in an 1798 sash.

I don't use glue in making reproduction 18th and 19th Century sash, shutters, or doors. The sash in this picture haven't been pegged yet, but weren't draw bored when they were.

Around here, all the remaining original 18th Century sash have 3/4" wide muntins. In the 19th Century houses they narrowed them to 5/8".

A molding plane is easy to use. You hog off most of the material to close to the profile with multiple passes on the table saw, and the molding plane just finishes. If you did a great job hogging with the table saw, the first couple of passes just takes off strings, and then a pass or two of very thin shavings to finish.

The size of this job is pretty close to break even between custom cutters and doing them by hand.

[Tom M King]

Ovolo for the 3/4. Ogee for the 5/8. No exceptions in this part of the country.

[James White]

Thank you!

[Kevin Jenness]

There is no good reason to draw bore today's kiln dried wood. Most of the failed old windows I've worked on failed because the draw bored pin spelched the tenon out, especially if that particular rail was quarter sawn.

The good thing about pegged windows is that you can replace parts on 200 year old sash by driving the pegs out and taking it apart-see picture with replaced glazing bars in an 1798 sash.

I don't use glue in making reproduction 18th and 19th Century sash, shutters, or doors. The sash in this picture haven't been pegged yet, but weren't draw bored when they were.

Around here, all the remaining original 18th Century sash have 3/4" wide muntins. In the 19th Century houses they narrowed them to 5/8".

A molding plane is easy to use. You hog off most of the material to close to the profile with multiple passes on the table saw, and the molding plane just finishes. If you did a great job hogging with the table saw, the first couple of passes just takes off strings, and then a pass or two of very thin shavings to finish.

The size of this job is pretty close to break even between custom cutters and doing them by hand.

Tom, those are nice looking windows and a credit to your use of old hand tools. How do you go about coping the joints? Do you cut jack miters and undercut with a coping saw or do you have a coping plane? I am more of a wood machinist and have done similar work with a shaper for profiling and a custom ground router bit for coping. In the far distant past I made some doors with jack miters and relieved the sticking at the rail and stile intersections but that is quite tedious.

I do have a Freeborn shaper set for ogee sash but like the Infinity set James originally showed it is not adaptable to integral tenons and requires using inserted tenons or dowels for strength. Realistically one is forced to use dowels for narrow sash bars, not a great compromise. I like spline tenons for a lot of joinery but they are far from ideal for delicate sash work.

[Tom M King]

For big jobs, like the one with the stack of sash that totaled 38 sash for one house, I get a set of 6 custom bits made to my design One is just for a mirror image of the muntin profile for carriers for the coping setups. Every joint is a mortise and tenon, so the cope just cuts above the tenon.

For singles or a few, I cut the copes with jewelers saws. I say saws because I keep several with different tooth count blades in them. I like the older Trojan jewelers saws better than the Knew Concept ones, but that's a different story. I have a couple of coping planes, but they're not the fastest way or can be counted on to consistently turn out perfect copes.

The tenons for the rails to stiles are all through tenons, and there are typically three different length tenons on the glazing bars and muntins depending on location in a sash. I copy the original exactly to the point that parts can be interchanged.

I have been known to change the profile on an old sash plane to what I needed. Pictures of 1735 sash plane I bought years ago for $15. I never pay much for molding planes.

I used to have it in detail on my website, but the software that site was built with was so old that it was no longer supported so I couldn't edit out any mistakes it had accumulated over the years. It got switched from one provider to another several times, and the price kept going up. That and all the errors that made it not make sense, I just dropped it, so it's no longer on the internet.

I'm not taking on any more work anyway, and it mostly just drew people looking for free advice for the past several years. I'm busy maintaining the Ponderosa here (what locals call it) and working on it getting it to pay for itself so I can pass it on to my kids and it not be a burden for them (watch Yellowstone?).

[Tom M King]

Backers and carriers made from English Boxwood. Four 9 lite replacement sash made for that 1850 house in the picture with the shutters made all with hand tools including that reworked sash plane. Parts for them in the second picture, but I didn't take a lot of pictures of the whole process. I get paid to produce work. Videos and pictures just slow me up.

[Tom M King]

Complete router setup. PVC pipe is for air inlet and finger protection. Shop Vac gets 100% of the dust and chips-no exaggeration. Deck made from synthetic bowling alley surface. Fence run in same session that window parts were milled. Folded once paper under holddown top entry side provides clearance to feed piece in.

Anyone who has ever seen it work, including people who know nothing of woodworking, exclaim, "I Want One!!" The vacuum even holds the part to the fence. Six routers dedicated to sash production all look like they just came out of the box new. Recessed hole in the deck for the bit only allows bit shaft to come through with almost no clearance.

[Kevin Jenness]

Thanks for the response and all the pictures, Tom.

[Tom M King]

No problem. Those pictures were already here anyway in my gallery. I can do anything any house needs with tools and equipment necessary, having been building and restoring them for a living for 50 years now. Woodworking is just one thing on the list.

[William Hodge]

Tom, It's great to see someone matching existing sash, through tenons and all.
No Dominos and epoxy.