Feltwell
Member
- Messages
- 6,367
- Location
- Shropshire, England
Only a small project.....
Feltwell Towers has a cast iron cellar window which was in a right old state - most of the glass was broken, some missing bits were covered in gaffer tape, British Gas (bless'em!) had put a gas pipe through one of them, the central opener was firmly welded shut with rust - the whole thing was just manky and horrible. As usual, I forgot to take a "before" picture.
Anyhow, the gas I re-routed some time ago, and with a revamp of the cellar currently underway it was time to tackle the window.
First off, getting the opener to open once again - lots of messing about with an oscillating multi-tool using old wood blades to slice through the rust, and it came free. However, that also revealed one of the hinges to be broken - I made a new piece from mild steel and tried to repair it by welding, doubting that it would work, and sure enough it didn't. I've now used some thick epoxy paste instead to glue my new bit in place, which seems to be holding.
Here's the cleaned up frame - took a full day, with old chisels, a needle scabbler on an airline and a wire brush on angle grinder.
Freed up opener:-
And repaired hinge - with everything being so lumpy and bumpy and corroded, you won't see it once it's painted over.
Time to re-glaze it. Trouble is, every little pane is a different size and shape, and the rebates are stupidly narrow - less than 1mm - so the glass has to be cut very accurately. The glass suppliers I use sent out one of their team to have a look and see if they could cut glass for me in-situ - "No chance" was the verdict. So, the only alternative is to template the whole thing - today's "exciting" job was cutting lots of bits of plywood - offer one up, trim a tiny bit off with a sliding mitre saw, offer it up again and so on - and on - and on............
Only 2 of the templates could be used for 2 panes! You can see where the frame has distorted as the building settled originally. Character........
So, next step is give the templates to the glaziers and stress they have to cut the glass spot on. I expect even so that I'll be travelling to and fro a couple of times with odd bits of glass, asking them to take a tiny bit off with their diamond edge polishing machine.
Feltwell Towers has a cast iron cellar window which was in a right old state - most of the glass was broken, some missing bits were covered in gaffer tape, British Gas (bless'em!) had put a gas pipe through one of them, the central opener was firmly welded shut with rust - the whole thing was just manky and horrible. As usual, I forgot to take a "before" picture.
Anyhow, the gas I re-routed some time ago, and with a revamp of the cellar currently underway it was time to tackle the window.
First off, getting the opener to open once again - lots of messing about with an oscillating multi-tool using old wood blades to slice through the rust, and it came free. However, that also revealed one of the hinges to be broken - I made a new piece from mild steel and tried to repair it by welding, doubting that it would work, and sure enough it didn't. I've now used some thick epoxy paste instead to glue my new bit in place, which seems to be holding.
Here's the cleaned up frame - took a full day, with old chisels, a needle scabbler on an airline and a wire brush on angle grinder.
Freed up opener:-
And repaired hinge - with everything being so lumpy and bumpy and corroded, you won't see it once it's painted over.
Time to re-glaze it. Trouble is, every little pane is a different size and shape, and the rebates are stupidly narrow - less than 1mm - so the glass has to be cut very accurately. The glass suppliers I use sent out one of their team to have a look and see if they could cut glass for me in-situ - "No chance" was the verdict. So, the only alternative is to template the whole thing - today's "exciting" job was cutting lots of bits of plywood - offer one up, trim a tiny bit off with a sliding mitre saw, offer it up again and so on - and on - and on............
Only 2 of the templates could be used for 2 panes! You can see where the frame has distorted as the building settled originally. Character........
So, next step is give the templates to the glaziers and stress they have to cut the glass spot on. I expect even so that I'll be travelling to and fro a couple of times with odd bits of glass, asking them to take a tiny bit off with their diamond edge polishing machine.
