I need a little help from the old timers (like me)

[Mike Hanan]

I am trying to help a friend restore some old wooden window frames from 1915.
Most of them are in pretty good shape, however there is one where the bottom rail is half rotted.
It will need a new piece and I am trying to get a name or specs of the profile.

This is a 6 pane window and the center rails go all the way across.
The center stiles are short and I was able to remove one as a sample.
Here is a couple of pictures and I am hoping someone can give me a name of the profile, even better if there was a place where I could get a detailed drawing, so I might be able to reproduce the profile for the bottom rail.
The overall dimensions are .75 wide and about 1 11/32 tall
I believe the top is 5/16 wide the second step is 9/16 wide.



I can cut the rabbits (for the glass) on my table saw or router if needed.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

[Paul F Franklin]

Mike, check this out: http://www.oldewindowrestorer.com/muntins.html

Also, a search for wood window muntin profiles will get you some more info.

[David Stone (CT)]

As a start, Google the word "muntin", which is the more specific name for the wood pieces that divide the panes of glass. I have a 175-year old house with a mangy menagerie of six-over-six sash, and the various muntin profiles generally have some kind of ogee and/or steps, but otherwise are all over the place. At the end of the day, I think you will need to reverse engineer the design from the existing part and what tooling/techniques you can find to approximate it, but Googling may at least pull up some old millwork drawings that are at least somewhat close and might have dimensions, which could be helpful.

[John TenEyck]

If you only need one or two pieces make a scratch stick from the profile. Waste away most of the wood on your tablesaw or router table and then use the scratch stick to complete the profiles.

John

[Tom M King]

The Cope shows what the profile originally was. That's called Ogee profile. Looking at the muntin on end, it looks like the profile has been changed, probably by scraping in times past.

Ogee and Ovolo are the two main profiles you see in old sash. An Ogee has rounded inside corners, and an Ovolo has sharper inside corners like there is a quarter round in there.

The short stub tenon shown in the cope picture is typical of where the muntin (short ones) intersects the glazing bars (long ones). The tenons where the muntins and glazing bars meet the stiles and rails will most likely be longer. Stiles are vertical side pieces, and rails are top and bottom main frames of the sash.

Look at the Windows page on my website to see more detail. Scroll down past the basement windows. My website is old enough that the software it was created with is no longer supported, so I can't edit anything in there and it has accumulated some formatting errors with whole blocks of text dropped. Prices shown were 2012 prices and no longer apply.
http://historic-house-restoration.com/windowwork.html

If I have just a few to make, they're made by hand without having to order custom cutters. I bought an Ogee coping plane a short while back off ebay, but it's still in the back seat of my truck in the unopened box it came in, so I don't know if it's what's needed, or not. In the past, I've cut the little copes with a jewelers saw.

[Tom M King]

Pictures from when I modified the profile on an old molding plane to match an ogee sash profile I needed.

[Mike Hanan]

Thank you all for the replies

Paul Franklin, the PDF showed exactly the 1915 muntin I was looking for.


Tom, you are doing some fantastic work, your website is great.

I have recently started down the woodworking CNC rabbit hole.
I have purchased a copy of Vectric vcarve pro, and they offer a molding toolpath.
I tried a trace of the end view and it didn't turn out very close.

I have created a new profile by tracing the coped end (better side view pic)
if that doesn't work I'll use the profile of the 1915 muntin style

you have all been helpful
thank you
Mike

[Tom M King]

I use plumbers epoxy putty, sold in the plumbing aisle of box stores, to take a molding of the muntin profile. A thin plastic wrap (ingredients wrap from behind the counter at Subway) is used to keep the epoxy from sticking to the sash, wrapped back over the other side of the lump of putty to press it in place to keep it off disposable gloves. After it sets up, that is sliced on a miter saw, and used to make matching drawings or to check profiles with.

This is a 5/8" wide Ogee from 1850 sash.

[Mike Hanan]

Well I have it
I finally discovered why I couldn't get a match on my CNC.
I kept trying to match the "face" instead of the edge.
here is my match using my CNC machine and the molding toolpath
Window Profile.jpg

Thanks again for the help and suggestions

Mike

[Jim Becker]

The molding toolpath is a VERY powerful tool. I've even used it to eliminate the need to do/use a 3D model and 3D cut for things like certain guitar profiles. 'Glad you were able to sort out that replacement material...it looks great!