Category Archives: Preservation

Portfolio, Preservation, Woodworking Techniques

Making a Case for Building Traditional Window Sash by Hand

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An important part of the Preservation Carpentry curriculum at the North Bennet Street School is working with traditional window sash. In earlier posts we’ve talked a lot about restoring old window sashes, but what about new work? Or a sash that is too far gone or not worth restoring? The best option is likely fabricating traditional window sash yourself. The task may seem formidable, but with some practice anyone with the time and determination can do it. I find the work to be quite enjoyable.

Completed sash with glazing in place
Completed sash with glazing in place

Having worked on many historic windows, and new factory made windows I definitely prefer earlier period windows (17th and 18th century). In our modern ‘throw away’ world most folks look at an old wooden window with disdain and are eager to toss them in the trash and get vinyl replacement windows. If I had my way that would be a crime against historic buildings. The media has everyone believing that modern windows are far more energy efficient and easier to live with compared to old windows and that is a view based on ignorance and marketing greed. I spent several years living in a rental house with brand new replacement vinyl windows and while they were only mid-range windows they were disgustingly drafty, hard to operate, could not be fixed if you broke a pane, and took away from the appearance of the home. A properly built and maintained traditional window can last for 100 years or more — a claim no modern window supplier would ever dare to claim. The key to the system is that ALL the pieces of traditional windows were of wood and designed so they could be regularly serviced and easily replaced — and since they are primarily wood the replacement parts are easily fabricated. Good luck finding a part of a manufactured window that far into the future.

Rich Friberg and Brom Synder fine tuning a muntin
Rich Friberg and Brom Synder fine tuning a muntin

Even though wooden sash may look delicate, you’d be surprised how strong they really are. The profiles are designed to look lighter than they really are, and when you start to add the glazing etc you’d be amazed how solid the sash will feel. A properly built window will have the necessary flashing in place and will not have any drafts or leakage. As the seasons change, open up and regularly inspect your windows. If you are concerned about stirring up lead dust on old windows, contact a window restoration or preservation specialist — and make sure they are EPA RRP licensed to do the work in accordance with the law. If your windows are sound but you’d like to try and bump up the efficiency of your home’s envelope, consider adding traditional style storm windows — which can be either interior or exterior style or both and should be divided light patterns that match your existing windows — try to avoid the aluminum clad plate glass style they have in the big box stores.

PRESERVATION TIP:

If you are living with an old window in your home that sticks — remove and inspect the sash. The sides of the window sash (aka the stiles) should NOT have any paint on the edges that run against the jamb. If you find your sticky window has paint on it, you should look to remove the paint from that edge and the jamb (in accordance with EPA RRP regulations) and then carefully wax those surfaces. The paint has thickness which makes it harder to move the window and with humidity can often get sticky/gummy. Make sure that you are careful when removing the paint from your sash that you do not also remove wood — you can’t replace it once its gone and you don’t want to wind up with a drafty window.

Setting the mirror with glazing points
Setting the mirror with glazing points

The skills you learn when making a window sash can be applied to make other areas of woodworking. Above is a nice little wall hung mirror I made for my wife out of some extra materials I had. This same skills can be used to make glass cabinet doors, full size mirrors, cases, doors, etc.

If you’d like to see the process of building your own window sash, please check out the slideshow below which walks through the process (you can see many NBSS PC2 students in action):

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Portfolio, Preservation, Woodworking Techniques

Running custom molding by hand

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What do you do when you need to tie into a non-stock molding? Or a very short run of custom or carved molding?

You make it yourself of course!

Making a short run of custom molding is often faster, and definitely cheaper than having a custom knife  or bit fabricated. The next time you need a short run of molding I highly encourage giving this a try.

Below are some photos walking through the process of creating a short run of custom molding. This piece is an interesting bit of crown molding with a carved rope pattern and dentils. I think the ‘carved’ rope on the original was pressed in by machine, which is why I like my hand carved section even more than the original.

The process I followed:

  • Draw your profile on both ends of the piece
  • Rough in as much as you can via machine —  like the table saw to save yourself time and effort
  • Use hollows and rounds (wooden molding planes) to get the curves
  • Square up your rabbet for the dentil
  • Cut the dental on the table saw, align it where you want and affix it to the piece
  • Walk off your carved pattern using dividers and pencils
  • Carve out your rope pattern
  • Enjoy your finished work 🙂
Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation, Timber Framing

2 Bay English Style Barn Raising at Brookwood Farm

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On Friday 5/18/12 I was able to participate in an unusual barn raising at the Brookwood Farm in Canton MA. It was the culmination of several years of work by North Bennet Street School students and instructors. The barn is unusual in that it is one of, if not the oldest known surviving 2 bay English style timber framed barns in New England. (I documented some of the history in earlier posts on this topic if you are interested) The barn is also interesting in how it was framed — with 2 bays being asymmetric and an interesting use of rafters and purlins.

Rich overseeing construction
Rich overseeing construction

As a student I worked on the floor system (joists and sills) along with hewing some of the replacement gunstock posts from solid oak along with milling LOTs of material that will be used to side and otherwise finish this barn. The class year before my class they worked on documenting the barn, labeling and  dissembling the barn and working on the floor system. The class years to follow worked on restoring other members of the frame, laying up the foundation and now the raising.

School van in front of the barn frame
School van in front of the barn frame

The completed frame contains a mixture of original materials and new oak which was hand hewn and carefully cut to replace rotted materials. The result is a piece of local history that is now preserved for future generations (as it will likely be the focal point for many events at Bookwood Farm — known for its Maple Sugar Days)

Below you can see a series of photos capturing the raising and some other interesting sights from the big day:

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Portfolio, Preservation

Old is New Again — Saltbox Door

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Sometimes art imitates life and vice versa. Sometimes we make new products that look old, and during the late 20th and early 21st centuries often those new products don’t quite hit the mark — think pressed hollow core interior doors made to look like a 6 panel door.

My senior project at NBSS gave me an opportunity to take on my own revisionist history challenge when working on a circa 1700 SaltBox colonial home in Sherborn MA. The rear ell door (most used door by the family) looked like this:

The 'Before' picture. Original 20th century door to be replaced.
The ‘Before’ picture. Original 20th century door to be replaced.

Homes from that period would not have lights (aka window panes) in a traditional door, but most folks would not be consciously aware of that, and the family was used to having this more modern style door. Unfortunately for the green door pictured above it was at the end of its service life and a modern (20th century) factory made door not worth restoring. So the challenge to me was to build a  more traditional door that fit the opening, had lights in it, but better matched the style and molding profiles of the house.

I designed and built a more traditional door which you can see in progress below. It’s a 9 light (smaller panes), 4 panel door built in the traditional style from eastern white pine. The design was similar to a house found on the Wellington House in Waltham MA and some similar 6 panel doors of the period. All the major joints are draw bored and tenoned (so it can be repaired if need be 100 years from now), all the muntins were run by hand and coped, the lights were hand glazed, the panels were pre-finished so you won’t see raw wood as the seasons change etc. I also used a full size story stick when laying out the joinery and traditional hardware. (Period hinges and Suffolk latch). Other work included new door jamb and casing, oak threshold, leadwork flashing, touching up some insulation etc.

Door in progress. I pre-finished the panels so when they move with the seasons you will not see exposed unfinished wood.
Door in progress. I pre-finished the panels so when they move with the seasons you will not see exposed unfinished wood.

The result of all this work is a very nice door that looks like it was part of the house for a very long time.

Completed door
Completed door
Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation

Harvard Shaker Meeting House — New Slate Roof

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Back in 2011 the NBSS Preservation Carpentry class worked on the Harvard Shaker Meeting House. It was a beautiful location. The class of 2010 worked on the front side of the house and the class of 2011 completed the back side. In this bucolic setting the class learned a lot about slate roofing and traditional staging.

Rear view of the Harvard Shaker Meeting House
Rear view of the Harvard Shaker Meeting House

Project goals:

  • Remove existing slate roof — preserving as many sound slates as we can
  • Stabilize existing sheathing
  • Install new plywood sheathing, ice and water shield and new flashing and vent fixtures
  • Replace missing cornice and stabilize raster tails
  • Re-hang the slates
  • Learn about traditional site built staging techniques

Below is a slide show outlining the work covered here.

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Portfolio, Preservation, Timber Framing

2 Bay English Style Barn — Working with Ax and Adze

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We recently posted on some square rule Timber Framing work. As a contrast, today we’ll take a look at an earlier form of timber framing known as ‘Scribe Rule’.  In contrast to ‘Square Rule’ timber framing with interchangeable parts,  pieces of a scribe rule timber frame are each scribed to one another — so each piece can only be used in a single location.

NBSS Sign in front of reconstructed floor system
NBSS Sign in front of reconstructed floor system

Back in 2009 as part of a North Bennet Street School Project at Brookwood Farm we worked on restoring the timber frame for a 2 bay English Style barn that was thought to be the oldest such barn in New England. Against the odds, the dendrochronology results were inconclusive which was disappointing, but based on what we can tell from what was left of the barn, even if it’s not the oldest it was/is still a notable barn both for some of the old world design and techniques used in its original construction.

The barn was found when a parks employee ran into the side of this barn (which was attached via ells to several other barns at Brookwood farm) with a tractor and uncovered posts that looked hand hewn. From there the school was eventually called in, and after careful evaluation and research by Steve O’Shaughnessy, Rich Friberg and others that this barn was indeed a rare bird and worth preserving. The class of 2009 and 2010 carefully dismantled the barn, cataloged the pieces and loaded it into a tractor trailer that now resides at the school (at the time of this writing). In or around May 2012 the restored/repaired frame should be raised again — I hope to post more on that if I am present for the barn raising.

The sills and floor structure of the barn were severely rotted, missing or replaced by the time we got to the barn, so in order to repair the barn we needed to start at the bottom and work our way up. This started with hand hewing new sills from oak.

Bill notching in on the side of a timber.
Bill notching in on the side of a timber.

After juggling off the sides with the felling ax, we moved on to the hewing axe, the use of which could best be described as halfway between an ax and a chisel. It also makes for a great workout routine — but remember to let the ax head do the work — trying to swing as hard as you can reduces your accuracy and just wears you out faster — believe me the oak knows how tough it is.

Bill hewing the log into a square timber
Bill hewing the log into a square timber

After doing a lot of square rule work with timbers from a saw mill, we all had new appreciation for how much work went into many of our historical structures in terms of manual labor. Once we had the sills ready to go the next step was to join them together using scribe rule techniques. Scribing is an intricate process which will get you handy with your plumb bob, level and scribes real fast. You’ll also learn the term ‘bump and die’ meaning if you bump into my carefully placed timber as I am trying to scribe it, I will kill you. 🙂 Death threats aside it can be a very interesting and rewarding process. This technique is especially well suited for folks working with hand hewn timbers which can often be warped, bowed, tapering, etc. and one can see how it worked well during the times when hand hewn timber was the only option available.

Completed floor system
Completed floor system

Once the flooring system was complete the next step was repairing/replacing the large oak gun-stock posts.

Lee working on hewing a gunstock post from oak
Lee working on hewing a gunstock post from oak

With our work done, the next year’s class took over and continue to work on the various pieces of this barn back in the trailer at the school.

Below is a slide show outlining in more detail the process:

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Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation

Viewing History — Old State House Window Restoration

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The slideshow below documents the 2010 restoration of historic window sash for the 1713 Old State House in Boston MA. This historic building was the seat of colonial government in the Massachusetts Colony, site of the infamous Boston Massacre and where the Declaration of Independence was read to the citizens of Boston.

It’s easy to take windows for granted — we see them every day — they are all around us. But with the constant bombardment of advertising for ‘new’ vinyl windows, the latest insulated glass etc and an over-hyped fear of lead paint and asbestos many of our nation’s historic windows are being discarded without a second thought. We’re robbing future generations of the same views we had — seeing sites through the same wavy old glass our forefathers looked through. The way light shines through a true divided light window and the ease of use and maintenance some old windows can offer.

Ease of use and maintenance?! What old windows are you talking about?

Believe it or not properly built old single and double hung windows can be quite weather tight and easy to use when properly installed and maintained. These old windows were designed so that you could take them apart — held together with joinery and pins — and replace or repair broken glass or rotted wood. This is a lot more ‘green’ that today’s ‘modern’ modern vinyl windows. If something breaks on a vinyl window often the only repair solution is to swap it out for a new unit — think of all that waste.  And lead and asbestos can all be safely removed or mitigated by preservation specialty contractors under the guidance of EPA regulations.

Below is a brief slideshow roughly documenting how a quality sash restoration can be carried out. I really enjoyed working on this project and I hope that you will consider saving/restoring your own historic windows.

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