Windows
The Window Goes Home
Sash weights, pulleys, tracks, stops... and considerably less cussin'
Part 2 ended with the window opening cleaned up, repaired and painted, the aluminum storm-window track looking respectable again, and the restored sashes getting dangerously close to the moment when I'd have to put everything back together.
That last part had been lurking in the background since we started this project.
Taking an old window apart is one thing.
Eventually you have to prove you can put it back together.
And after the amount of trouble we had getting the first sash installed yesterday, I wasn't entirely convinced that Future George and Present George were still on speaking terms.
Today went better... considerably better.
There was also considerably less cussin'.
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| Almost there. The restored sashes were back where they belonged; now it was time to reconnect the machinery that makes a 99-year-old window work. |
Back Inside the Wall
One of the things I've enjoyed most about completely dismantling this window is finally getting a good look at how simple the old system really is.
Simple, of course, doesn't necessarily mean easy.
Behind the trim are the sash weights. The cords run up through pulleys near the top of the jamb and disappear down inside the wall, where gravity does most of the work.
No springs.
No plastic balance cartridges.
No proprietary hardware.
Wood, rope, metal and gravity.
That's about it. And after nearly a century, there wasn't much reason to redesign anything.
The job was simply to put it back into service.
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| Behind the trim, the old sash cord disappears into a part of the house nobody normally sees. |
FROM THE STACKS · 2018
Eight years ago, I admitted that I'd always avoided working on the interiors of these old windows. The woodwork was too beautiful to risk damaging, and everything behind it looked intimidatingly complicated.
Apparently I eventually got over that.
Go back to “Window Work — What Was I Thinking?” →The Pulleys
And then there were these.
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| Two old sash pulleys, temporarily unemployed after spending most of the last century hidden inside the window. |
I love these things.
Not because they're particularly beautiful. They're stamped pieces of metal with little wheels inside them.
But think about what they've been doing.
For something approaching a century, they've been buried inside this window opening while sash cords passed over those wheels every time somebody raised or lowered the window.
The Moshers used them.
We've used them since 1997.
Nobody looks at them.
Nobody thinks about them.
They just work.
Until some idiot with a screwdriver decides that after 99 years they deserve a day out.
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| There are easier ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. |
The pulleys went back in.
The sash cords went over them.
The weights went back into their pockets.
And slowly all those individual pieces I'd labeled weeks ago started becoming a window again.
Yesterday Was Mostly Operator Headspace
I'll admit something.
Getting the first sash back in yesterday took far longer than it should have. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong.
The parts fit.
The cords worked.
The tracks were ready.
The sash was ready.
The operator, however, apparently required additional calibration.
There was a sequence to everything. A little angle here. Enough slack there. Hold this while guiding that. Don't let the cord disappear. Don't scratch the finish you've just spent weeks restoring.
Once we finally understood the timing, today's work was almost civilized.
Funny how often that's the difference between the first one and the second one.
Yesterday:
This is impossible.
Today:
Oh. That's how you do it.
House 173 has provided nearly thirty years of opportunities to learn this lesson. I remain an enthusiastic remedial student.
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| Sometimes sophisticated restoration equipment looks remarkably like blue painter's tape. |
Tracks, Stops and All the Little Pieces
The tracks went back.
Then the stops.
And all the little pieces that make a double-hung window look deceptively simple once they're assembled.
That's another thing this project has changed for me.
Before I took one completely apart, a window was basically glass surrounded by wood.
Now I see the system.
Sash.
Tracks.
Stops.
Parting beads.
Cords.
Pulleys.
Weights.
Hardware.
Dozens of pieces working together so quietly that when everything is right, you don't notice any of them.
You just open the window.
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| Piece by piece, the approximately 47 parts started remembering that they were a window. |
And eventually... that's exactly what we did.
It's a Window Again
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| Ninety-nine years old, back together, and doing its job again. |
After weeks of having sash on the workbench, trim leaning against things, labeled pieces scattered around and an enormous hole where a perfectly serviceable window used to be... it's a window again.
Both sashes are back.
Weights installed.
Pulleys installed.
Tracks installed.
Stops back where they belong.
And it goes up and down.
That's a remarkably satisfying sentence to write.
HOUSE 173 NOTE
This project started with one rule:
Don't screw up the woodwork.
The woodwork survived.
So did the original glass.
And, perhaps most surprisingly, so did I.
Ninety-Nine Years and Counting
Tomorrow I'll clean up the tools.
I'll pull off the blue tape.
I'll put the room back together.
Eventually nobody walking through the study will have any reason to know how many hours went into this window.
They won't see the sash weights.
They won't see the cords disappearing into the wall.
They won't see those old pulleys quietly turning.
They'll just see a window.
That's exactly how it should be. Somebody built this thing around 1927. The Mosher family opened and closed it for decades.
We've looked through it since 1997.
And today, after being completely dismantled, scraped, repaired, sanded, primed, painted, stained, glazed and put back together, it's ready to keep doing the same ordinary job it has been doing for nearly a century.
Open.
Close.
Let in some air.
Let in some light.
I think we've asked enough of it for one summer.
And considerably less cussin' today.
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
