65, Windows, finally getting somewhere!

With a decision made on the glass, I could now make the glazing beads to suit. In the past, for this type of moulding I would make up a cradle to fit inside the thicknesser and run them through one at a time. There was usually a high mortality rate with this process, the rollers,when set firm enough to overcome the friction in the cradle, tended to crush the wood, causing it to curl. A lot of wastage was also normal, with about 200mm of the ends needing to be docked, this being due to excessive chatter occurring until the leading edge of the mould was steadied by the outfeed roller and after the trailing edge cleared the infeed roller.
My newest toy, the sander was pressed into action. I cut a tray, slightly longer than the longest bead, onto which I tacked and glued some sawn wood, of the same profile. The beads, sawn slightly oversize, were then placed in the corrugations and passed through the machine. I could sand six at a time and found the method worked perfectly, with no pieces being rejected or needing trimming as a result.

I produced enough beading's for all the windows, with about an extra 50 for spares, should any be needed down the track. With these ready, more monotonous labour then ensued, with the bulk of them being primed and receiving one top coat, all around.

Next on the agenda was the glazing. For the cutting of this, I stretched a blanket across my work table and clamped on a few wooden blocks, to cradle a large square.
The upper and lower sashes were made to have identically sized panes and I had taken great care to ensure that they were all true and of the correct dimensions. This enabled me to pre cut all the pieces of glass to set sizes.
From the same supplier as the double glazing materials; C.R.Laurence, I also purchased a number of silicon carbide sanding belts to suit my 4" sander. I was rather hesitant to go anywhere near the glass with this machine, as had been recommended to me, but it proved very successful in removing the sharp arris as well as sanding true any mis cut or oversized pieces.
I fitted the glass using a bead of "glazing sealant", a product by ROCOR. This stuff is water based and comes in cartridges, for use in standard caulking guns. It is designed for use with timber frames only. It forms a skin on it's surface but remains permanently soft and flexible. Any clean up of misplaced or squeezed out material is easily carried out by waiting for it to skin and simply rubbing it off. It is also just as easy to clean out, down the track, when replacing glass. It can be a bit hard to source but is available in Australia from Lincoln Sentry. I find it far superior to silicone, which can be a nightmare to clean off.
Once I had the sashes glazed, the outside faces were given another coating of gloss enamel before the final assembly. With that out of the way, the scales were then given a workout. The sashes were weighed and the cast iron weights were cut to suit. They were imbalanced by about 1/2 a pound, to give a slight bias to keeping the sashes closed.
More consideration was given to the provision of parting slips and I opted to fit them. If the idea of double glazing rears it's head again, sometime in the future, they would be necessary to prevent square cast lead weights from interfering with each other. Made from two laminated strips of 3mm ply, I screwed them to wooden blocks fixed at the top of the box's. They are normally poked through a slot in the head and secured by a dowel, but limited space over the windows precluded this method. If not fitted now and installation of them was required at a later date, it would necessitate the complete removal of the windows. After the weights were fitted, the box's were sealed with 10mm ply, screwed to the linings.

Finally, I could start to see some of fruits of my labour, the first completed window awaits loading into my van to be taken down the hill.
The brass latches were purchased via eBay from the UK. This was another typical example of how we are "ripped off" in this country. The total price, (buy it now), including the relatively expensive shipping cost of these items, manufactured by our Asian neighbours, was less than 50% of the cheapest Australian retail price I could source.