Window Surgery

Hello Everyone!

Well, turkey day has come and gone and not much happened over the holiday week-end.

Annette and I did manage to do a couple of days of antiquing (or as we like to call it 'junking') and found a few items for the house.

On Sunday we did get motivated to do some work on the kitchen. I started the process of working on the main windows. I had to remove these zinc/tin runners that were added to the window sometime in the late 20s. Underneath them we found the portal that allows access to the cast iron window weights; surprisingly, all of them were still in the wall. So, I will reattach those before too long.

Anyway, here is a pic. Sorry for the quality (we need a better camera!!).



The main thing I needed to work on was the sagging bottom meeting rail of the outer window.

Additional meeting rail parts made of zinc/tin (part of the zinc/tin window trim system mentioned earlier) were installed at the same time as the other.

Over time, these parts became warped and filled with crud and each time the window was shut it forced the outer, bottom, meeting down.

This eventually made a downward bow in the wood and was causing the joints of the meeting rail and vertical stiles to separate.

So, I decided to try and fix the problem. First thing to tackle was cleaning out all the old crud and paint that had built up over the years in the space where the wood parts had separated. Then a liberal dose of wood glue was applied. After this, a bottle-jack & tackle system was installed (pictured).

Due to the age of the wood and glass, caution was used when jacking the meeting rail back into place. Each side was jacked up enough to move the rail. The pressure was held and then backed off. By doing this, the window was allowed to 'rest' at times so that a lot of pressure didn't get built up and shatter the glass. It was very nerve wracking when we heard the creaking and cracking of the window. We were just sure the glass would burst, but it didn't.

Eventually the joints came back together, however, there is still a slight bend in the center. I have a couple of ideas to fix this problem, but need to think on it some more. I will keep you posted as we go.