• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Hello from “Windows”

Windows

Old Oak
Joined
Jan 25, 2022
Messages
1,437
Reaction score
434
Location
Cumbria & West Kent
Hello. Greetings from Cumbria.

I’m extremely new to practical woodworking, but I’ve read a bunch of text and watched a lot of videos over the last few months.

My major woodworking goal is to create secondary glazing for the side opening casement windows in my Edwardian-style house to aid with heat retention and reduce condensation.

In the future I hope to build a shed/workshop because I don’t have a good place to work currently.

In terms of the woodworking process, I’m going for:
1. Low noise
2. Low dust
3. Low chemicals
4. Reversible construction

As a result I’m focusing on human-powered woodworking with hand tools.

Low noise means not only that I’m unlikely to use large machinery, but also that I’m likely to avoid bashing chisels with hammers if I can help it. (For example, I may use an auger bit to remove waste from a mortise before paring with a chisel rather than chiselling the whole thing).

Low dust means that I won’t be using powered saws and sanders. It also means that I’m going to avoid sanding at all if I can help it. (For example, using a plane or card scraper instead of sanding).

Low chemicals and reversible construction means I’ll be avoiding glue as far as possible. (Instead relying on wood joints, wedges, draw-boring where dismantlability isn’t worthwhile.)

Low stress is more important to me than high speed.

I have a small collection of basic tools (Japanese saws, western chisels, brace, drill, couple of moulding planes, rebate plane, no 4 plane, some clamps) which should do the job for the windows.

I’ve put together a single basic frame so far, using different joints on each corner, so I’ve reassured myself that I have the basic dexterity to cut in a straight line and also gained a better understanding of the benefits of traditional casement construction. But I’m starting at zero really.

I’m looking forward to learning a lot from everyone here. I’ve already learned a bunch, particularly from AndyT’s and Mike G’s posts, and I can see so many others on here that are generous with their time and expertise.

Nice to meet you all.
 
Welcome from just across the border.

You clearly like a challenge! Whereabouts in Cumbria are you ?
 
Everything you can do with a powertool (ok, nearly everything) can be done with a hand tool. the biggest difference is the amount of time it takes, so more power to your elbow.


Welcome to the club, hope this bunch of rebrebates can help you along your journey, I'm for the most part useless. :D
 
Welcome Windows. Good to have another hand-tool-and-joinery person here.

Just as an aside, some glues are reversible, particularly the traditional ones which require heating to work initially. Just add a little heat and the glue re-softens and the joints come apart. I think this will help you with casements/ secondary glazing, because the joints are in the corners so pegging and wedging are more problematic.
 
Hi Windows, welcome from Northumberland ( the drier side to the east :lol: ) My wife lived in Brampton as a child and has fond memories.

Quite a challenge you've set yourself especially without a workshop but why would the joints on such a project need to be reversible? If I was putting up secondary glazing I'd want a good fit and to be removeable as a unit but can't see me wanting to dismantle it. Just curious, I'm sure there's a logical reason. Pics of what you've done and want to do would be very interesting.

avoid bashing chisels with hammers
I'm very pleased to hear that, it's a sinful act and perpetrators should be thrown in prison and left to rot imo :eusa-naughty: only a mallet made from more forgiving materials is acceptable and "bashing" is not necessary unless the chisel is blunt but I don't envy you chopping out a mortice without a mallet unless you're using your hand as one which is not to be recommended.

I confess that while I love using hand tools I also use power tools and machinery on a very regular basis so create a lot of dust and noise and lots of sweeping up.
 
Thanks for the welcomes TrimTheKing, novocaine, Dr. Al, DaveL, Mike G, Lons, & Malc2098.

Puns are welcome, and pictures will be forthcoming.

Thanks for the tip on reheating glue to loosen it, Mike G.

Lons, I agree that joints on the window don’t really need to come apart again. It was more a statement of principle for future projects. I take your point on hammer vs mallet. I have so far done one blind, and one through mortise using neither hammer nor mallet, just drilling for bulk waste removal and paring cuts with the chisel. It took a while, but I can see how to speed up (major limitations at the time were sharpness of chisels & limited options for work holding - I’ve made some progress on those). Probably going to end up with mostly draw bore bridle joints in the near future though.
 
Welcome from me too.

As luck would have it, I have just broken off for a moment while I have been experimenting with cutting some mortises using the boring and paring technique. I think it does make sense for larger sizes on hard wood. Photos to follow soon in my current wip thread.

One of the many things I enjoy about woodworking is how there are always several ways to solve any problem, with different scores for skill needed, tools needed, speed, noise, accuracy, etc.

I look forward to seeing and discussing your ideas.
 
Welcome to the Woodhaven2 Windows!

We have rather a lot of Mac users here so more windows are always welcome :lol:

You and I will possibly never agree on woodworking methods as I'm at the opposite end of the machine tool spectrum to you (and many others here) but there is plenty of room for all types and I'm particularly interested to see how you fare with your glue-less construction strategy.

Bob
 
Thanks for the welcome, 9Fingers and Lurker.

Andy, I’ve been enjoying your ash bed WIP. Good to see how you do things. Your Stanley depth stop is a bit prettier than the Eclipse 88 I’ve got. Weirdly, I’ve also managed to end up with a manual bench drill not unlike yours, but I’ve not had a chance to use it yet since I’m missing the pole and indeed a bench.
 
"How do?" Windows.

I'm just two songs on Radio Two up the road from Lons. He's right about it being the drier side :eusa-dance: . Good luck with your sawdust-creating!!
 
SamQ aka Ah! Q!":3w1kfkdi said:
.... He's right about it being the drier side :eusa-dance: ....

Go on then...rub it in...twist that knife :lol:
 
‘ow do, SamQ? Thanks for your welcome. We often climb a hill in a downpour just to catch a glimpse of the better weather on your side.
 
Windows":2pfcnm3j said:
‘ow do, SamQ? Thanks for your welcome. We often climb a hill in a downpour just to catch a glimpse of the better weather on your side.
If you did that today and outstretched your arms you would very soon be here with us, a damn strong wind blowing from the west today.
 
damn strong wind blowing from the west today.

R.A.F. Boulmer (3 miles away) clocked 78mph this afternoon. Louise Lear had it on her graphic, so it must be true.

I tried walking our rather-high-off-the-ground lurcher/Saluki cross, and the poor brute was running canted over damn near 30 degrees to counteract Malik-aforethought.
 
Back
Top