Most durable and workable timber for making windows .

[mel]

jason
try using hemlock and a couple of coats of sadolin
or even meranty {typo}
from a sustainable source of course

tree hugger
mel

 

[Jake]

This guy has an interesting take on oak durability

http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/intro.htm

 

[JFC]

Also an interesting intake on houses , most if not every house with a pitched roof has a soffit and facia . :-k

 

[mel]

jason
he also has an interesting view on the use of linseed oil to protect the outside joinery
i might treat the missus to a weekend camping in the "yurt" :roll: :roll:
hes only about 40 mins away

 

[Scrit]

I've noticed that the conservation people seem to like linseed oil paints a lot. I've been looking around for suitable "donor designs" for doors to replace the 'orrible PVCu rubbish that our house has and the interesting thing is that the few late Victorian pattern doors (all pine up here) which have survived intact (i.e. original raised panels, bolection mouldings, etc) have seemingly either been neglected since the year dot and not seen a lick of paint in 30 or so years (from the look of them), or assiduously maintained by people who must repaint their doors every couple of years. There's just nothing in between. Sash windows seem to fare less well, however, and I'm struggling to find a local house with anything like original pattern windows in more or less original state to copy the design from.

Scrit

 

[MIGNAL]

Actually that chap may have a very valid point. Back in the eighties I worked for a small firm who used to replace doors/windows and I was often surprised just how well windows that were near on 100 years old had survived. Some of those windows had clearly not seen fresh paint in 50 years.

 

[ProShop]

Theres a wood yard & joinery shop near me, and the large timber building is just come up to 80 yrs old. It still has 95% of the original cladding in place, it's never been treated as far as we know.

 

[Scott]

Theres a wood yard & joinery shop near me, and the large timber building is just come up to 80 yrs old. It still has 95% of the original cladding in place, it's never been treated as far as we know.

Do you know what timber it is John?

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[John McM]

This guy has an interesting take on oak durability

http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/intro.htm

I've emailed this chap in the hope that he will join in the discussion. I am genuinely interested in making my own cottage windows and am undecided on the choice of wood and finish. I still fancy oak and oil but welcome all opinions. Whatever I do it's got to be better and cheaper than that plastic rubbish.

Cheers
John

 

[Shultzy]

My house was built in 1968, and we moved into it in 1972. Apart from replacing an opening light soon after we moved in all the windows are fine. I don't know what they are made of but I paint them every 3-4 years. Even the windows bought from Magnet in 1976 for the extension are all fine.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Will post up my generic Victorian sash-window design drawing when I've got a mo

cheers
Jacob

I, for one, would be very interested in that. I know very little about architectural joinery, I'm more of a furniture guy, but I have to learn fast - SWMBO wants an extension - we have to do something with our 20-year-old flat roof, and the most sensible thing is to extend upstairs to the same position and put on a proper pitched roof. Architect arrives Monday!

I've helped to make a set of 23 replacement casements this past year, but I think I've only ever made one window frame from scratch in my entire life. As I recall, it almost fitted.

 

[SlimShavings]

Hers's my "merican pennies worth

Red Oak is not good for windows
White Oak holds up quite well

If you cut off a short peice of red aok you can blow through it
if you cut off a short peice of white oak you can't blow through it.

in the link to oak windows the small tree is white oak. the leaves are rounded. (Maybe I should check to be sure ) red oak has pointy leaves I believe

Now I don't know about eurpoean oak

Most wood windows here are white pine and yellow pine but they are treated to resist rot.

 

[Anonymous]

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[SlimShavings]

Just like to say for me that your drawing is very nicely done and understandable. Not always the case

Will post up my generic Victorian sash-window design drawing when I've got a mo

cheers
Jacob

I, for one, would be very interested in that.
snip

Found a copy of my drawing and here it is, if this link works.
It's a fairly typical design of a small to medium sized victorian sash. Sorry doesn't show constructional details - feel free to ask.
There are many variations - smaller sections not uncommon with glazing bars down to 1/2 inch , and bigger sections in both earlier Georgian, and later Edwardian large paned examples. People tend to be surpised by the narrow sections but they are quite common, but sometimes not obvious due to accumulated paint and putty. It's this 1st window here http://www.owdman.co.uk/joinery
cheers
Jacob

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Biff Vernon mentioned slow-growth pine several times on his pages and that's what windows really should be made from. It's just about as scarce thse days as Honduras mahogany (or whatever of the nearly killed species), but it is available. And when it's the proper quality, it's good. Real good.

A good example of it was when I cut some reclaimed wood for my boat's repairs. The wood was so pitchy that the whole workshop smelled like pine turpentine factory and you could actually make "snowballs" from the sawdust:

My house was built 1919 and the builders have recycled even older windows to the house when they built it. You can tell by the "useless" small cutouts for hinges and other hardware on places where they are not needed. And the fact that the glass is old blown glass which looks like the glassblower had a bad hiccup

So the windows are 100+ years old. On the south wall I had to replace some wood on the lower part of the windows, but otherwise it was just up to taking off the putty, removing glass, planing the grey wood off, building a few parts to replace rotten pieces, good soak in linseed, re-glazing and linseed oil paint. Basically the upper parts of the windows were just as good as when they were built, and south wall was the only one requiring any woodwork. Although there was some wood that was a bit worse than perfect, I'd say the windows should have at least 30-40 years in front of them - before the next big haulout.... :wink:

But all in all, Biff's way of making hte windows makes perfect sense to me, it's just the way they have been built and should be built. A few of my windows on the roof were too sour to be restored. As they were originally badly built, I got a friend to build me new ones. She (yes, she) built them just as they should be built, from good quality pine, mortise and tenon joints, secured with wooden pegs and all the works. They look just like they should.

By the way, for some reason most of the carpenters around here building traditional windows the right way are women. Don't know why, but it has been so for at least 10+ years. 1970-90's were really dark ages anyway what comes to building traditional windows, but there has been surprisingly few men starting window business after that. And there are several hundred people building (or restoring) those windows these days in the country.

Pekka