This is for the spring bronze users in the house:
I’ve searched through the archives and still can’t find the answers I need.
I’ve been dis-assembling, stripping, refinishing and weatherstripping our 90 year old double-hungs. I just tried my hand weatherstripping the first one I put back together with spring bronze. (I don’t want to cut any channels in the windows…trust myself more with nailing the spring bronze than messing up with cutting.)
I’ve nailed it onto the top of the upper sash, the bottom of the lower sash, and on the meeting rail of the upper sash. And I have it lining both sides of the upper jamb against the upper sash and lower jamb against the lower sash
When I installed it on each jamb, I let about 1″ continue past the edge of the window so it wouldn’t “catch”. I cut out the spring bronze around the pulleys. So far, so good.
I’m just worrying that I’m missing something here. Or maybe I’m missing some tips and tricks to make stripping the next one a little easier. It doesn’t help that I have never SEEN a properly weatherstripped old double-hung. The houses I’ve lived in up until this point had the windows replaced before I moved in.
Any cool tricks that you’ve used? Such as the best way to get a tight fit when installing a window lock? Ways to maximize weathertightness AND movement? Do you go all the way to the corners on the top and bottom of each sash? Etc. Etc.
Any digital photos of your properly spring-bronzed double hungs? Big BIG points.
Thanks all.
Replies
bump
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
Excellent book on restoration of wood windows: Working Windows by Terence Meany.
Did you run a putty knife along the crease by the nailing area to "re-spring" it?
It is too flat when new, you need to tweak it for a snug fit.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Tommy, can you hear me?
Why look here?
I'll get some pictures tonight. We have Zinc, but the principals are the same I think.
Glad to hear you are restoring your windows!
Thanks all! (I love Working Windows, btw)
We have zinc on some of the windows which I'm leaving in place because it is so great. Where do you get the zinc weatherstripping?
We also have zinc on some of the sills that wraps over the outside edge. It has done a wonderful job of protecting these 90 year old mistreated sills. A few questions with anyone who is familiar...do they still make these sill covers? What are they called?
I've lost my bookmarks, but if you do a search here on the forum you should be able to find at least one link to a weatherstripping place that does zinc.BTW, it dawned on me that my zinc is not the type that is "sprung" rather there are channels that the windows have that follow the peak in the zinc.With this type, the meeting rails generally have two pieces that "mate" together and interlock.
I use bronze on the sides, but on the meeting rails and top and bottom I use either thin vinyl (you can nail it on if you don't want to cut a kerf) or felt.
I think these surfaces, and the meeting rail in particular, need a more flexible surface than bronze; often I just use felt (not the best b/c it wicks up moisture) because it gives so much, and the windows often get sotight that I can't close them properly after restoration (I am probably a bit of a hack, too).
If you can find it, the "cushion v-bronze" like the one I get here is better than the spring imho http://www.bbmc.com/bbmc/windowparts/weatherstripping.html
There are as many ways to do it as there are windows; maybe you could get a good window restorer to do one of your windows so you could then use it as a model-
>"Any cool tricks that you've used? Such as the best way to get a tight fit when installing a window lock? Ways to maximize weathertightness AND movement?"<
jmo,
I'm glad you're doing this, too. Let me ask you, are there no other windows in the house with weather stripping? Many double hungs were designed to work w/o., and I'm wondering if yours weren't as well. If that's the case, I'm thinking that adding so much spring bronze would not only make them very hard to operate, but might even interfere with their ability to close tightly -especially if you leave any gaps. I know it can get a lot colder in Chicago than here in California, but many of the double hungs I see rely on just the locking hardware to snug them up into their closed position. When installed correctly it wedges them apart, top and bottom, but pulls them together tight in the middle at the same time. when they're unlocked, they should actually feel slightly loose - this makes them "weightless" and easy to slide with one hand.
To answer your question, though, the latches are tricky to place because you've got to get them to wedge tightly without over stressing them. Again, if there are any left in their original position, I would tend to leave them where they are. If they lock tightly together and the sashes still rattle, I think the "channel" system was designed to retrofit windows like yours and it would work better. BTW, You're doing all this work on the windows, cutting those slots isn't as hard as you think. If you've got a circular saw, screw a block of wood to the underside of the "shoe" (base) paralell to the blade, and this will guide the saw right down the middle of the edge. Take time setting it up, then cut with confidence. Better yet, get a small, cheap router with a slot cutting bit (looks like an open umbrella) and run it around each sash. For the bottom edge of the bottom sash, you might want to use your spring bronze, or foam.
Hope this helps you, good luck