Elderflower Intermission

As making the casement opening is taking some time, due to life, I thought I would add a hedgerow recipe which is so delightful, easy and cheap; elderflower cordial.

Dissolve about 1.8 kg sugar in 2 pints of water, take the rind off a few lemons (I use a potato peeler) slice the remaining lemon and put all in the pot. Pick 25 or so elderflowers, on a warm sunny day, gently shake to remove insects, but not the pollen, put in with sugar water and lemons, and leave to steep for 24-36 hours.

Strain through a muslin bag, add about 60g citric acid for a kick, and bottle. I use small water bottles and keep in the fridge. It lasts a couple of months before it starts to ferment. But I make heaps and freeze it, and then it lasts forever.

Annual car lovefest

Time has spun round and it is time to MOT the car. Car maintenance is not something I can claim any modicum of skill in, so our vehicle gets the professional treatment. I say car, but it is more of a bus, as I have more children than I know what to do with, we have an almost-people carrier, without much oomph (but in my dreams I drive an Alfa Romeo Spyder or Africa Twin, neither suited to a superfluity of passengers, hmmm, wonder why).
But, I always remember the advice of my Gruncle; make the car look as if it is loved and cared for, and then the testers assume I have bothered (on the infrequent occasions I drive it) to check the oil. So this is the poor cars time to shine, literally, as I muck out the bags of crumbs, rotten apple cores, endless plastic junk, half sucked sweets rammed in corners; the dingy debris of my delightful little darlings..

This year ants are making free with the soiled beets. As I empty sweet wrappings, I see a column of Hymenopterans, who have discovered the car is a boiled sugar paradise, delectable treats awaiting in every corner. I am afraid I hoover these up mercilessly, taking the view, that the hoover is full of so many food items, plus Lego they will not be hungry or lacking in activities. The ants are not so bad, considering a previous year when I noticed chewed sweet wrappings. I carried on feeding them to the kids, as and when car sickness dictated. However, the reason for the chewed wrappers finally struck me as I carted a car load of boys (some of them not mine) on an outing, I had just handed the last of the sweets out, and the empty, shredded bag staring at me suddenly said- mice, or worse, rats? Could they actually get in the glove compartment? Vermin are one of those things, when you start looking for the traces, you cannot believe you have been so blind as to not notice them before.

Maybe I should clean the car more often...

Casement Window IX

Once mitred mouldings have been added to to all areas to be glazed, the main body of the window is complete (wicked). I then lavishly smother the frame in a wood treatment (to hopefully) prevent rot, fill any gaps in joints and mitrings (no one is perfect) with exterior filler, and then prime, undercoat and exterior paint the frame (ready for the photo shoot...). Photo coming soon.

But next-the opening part of the casement, and to my mind the hardest.

Casement Window VIII

Decide on the thickness of your glass or double glazing units, because this will affect the size of moulding used for the recess in which the glass sits. I really am not sure if this is the right approach, but it is one that works for me. I buy lengths of quadrant (this is 25mm quadrant) sometimes I plane a flat surface, or I have used a router on a 25mmx25mm to get the moulded shape I want. Mitre the ends. I always allow extra, because I always mitre the wrong way, several times, AND mess up, as the saw slips. Liberally apply water resistant wood adhesive, and clamp.

Casement Window VII

A dowelled mortice and tenon joint on my window.

And the completed window frame, after the extra tenon lengths had been sawn off. I thought I had photographed a before and after, but obviously not. Here I am also starting to add the moulding for the glass to sit against. See next post.

Casement Window VI

Check all the mortice and tenons fit (assemble the whole window) they want to be a good fit, but not too snug. Before gluing every thing together, holes have to be drilled so that dowelling pegs (I use 6mm) can reinforce the joint, if the hole in the tenon is drilled slightly closer to the inside of the frame, then the dowel acts to draw everything together. Then all sides of the tenon and mortice are liberally glued with a waterproof wood adhesive, assembled, hammered home, pegged with the dowel, clamped if you have long sash clamps and left to dry. Sorry, I swear the photo was in focus when on the camera, I really must get a better one.

Casement Window V

Maybe not the best photographs in the world (I do only have a pint and shoot), it is not my metier. But hopefully the idea is clear. Scribe the mortice and tenon using the marking gauge, cut tenon using a tenon saw, and mortice using using chisel/drill router combination.

Casement Window IV

Tools are vital. I use these. Plus a saw, a mitre saw, drill and a router. Thanks Pa, for recognising the need to 'share' your tools with me. My first mortices were made using a drill and chisel, the router has made it so much easier. But it is still necessary to pare the ends of the mortice square with a chisel. A sharp one. As I have discovered a blunt chisel is no good. I tend to sharpen mine every couple of mortices cut.

Casement Window III

Next I did a brief sketch of the window I was intending to replace. Essentials like width, length, depth. I made an approximation of the wood I required, allowing extra for the tenons, and a small 'shoulder' on the sill and top rail (this is probably not its true term) which is then sawn or pared after the window has been assembled, so all joints are flush with the body of the frame.

Then I took myself down to the nearest timber merchants (I am so lucky to have a delightful local one) and checked the quality of the wood. I purchased planed softwood which was as near to the dimensions that I required. A brief digress here; I know hardwood would last longer, but it is also much more expensive-I take the view that as I am likely to make mistakes, and I also intend to protect the window and repaint every year, this is an unnecessary expense. One of my village friends very thoughtfully loaned me a monstrous but wicked machine, which enables me to accurately plane wood to the appropriate measures. This is far better (in so many ways) than planing by hand.

Casement Window II

Okay, so it is a sketch, many books and wikipedia will show more accurate drawings (even ruled). I made a few practice M and T joints. Learned from other very valuable village friends, that a 'shoulder' should be added to a M and T joint, particularly in a window to prevent the frame from twisting. See the rough sketch above for an M and T joint with a shoulder. Strictly speaking the proportions of a tenon joint should be one third the thickness of the rail, something to bear in mind when marking out the joint.

Next I did a brief sketch of the window I was intending to replace. Including essentials, like the height and width of window, depth of rails etc.

Building a casement window

First posting is about building a casement window. I live in a 180 year old mud house, and have done for a while. The windows need continual maintainance, sanding, painting, filling, cutting out of rotten wood, replacement with filler, until finally I had more plastic wood and wet-rot hardener than I did original window. I abhor PVC windows; where would all my cute, friendly woodworm live? So on looking into replacement bespoke wooden windows, I discovered how very, very expensive they are. Secondly I was inspired by Dave who used to live in the village, and every day, taking my kids to school, I would pass him slowly replacing all 10 of the windows on his house (and he did the back). Finally I plucked up courage to ask him the hows whys and wherefores, I then discovered that he was not a professional, but enthusiastic amateur and did it in his spare time. Armed with this knowledge and the passion I have for creating things, I set about finding out how to put a window together. For sash windows this is not too difficult, there seem to be sites and books showing you how to build one, blimmey, there are even kits. Casement was a lot harder (and it is in response to this I am blogging). Firstly I looked in books, DIY ones have exceedingly small bits on how to repair parts of casements, even books I ordered especially from my lovely local library; their titles suggesting all answers would be held within, proved of little use. For once in my life, answers were not contained within tomes. So then I examined the windows, and the parts that had fallen off, discovered the joints that they were held together by. Now books did come in handy at this point, naming the essential woodworking joint as the mortice and tenon. And here is a picture of said joint.

Declaration of intent

I have always been of practical bent, enjoying getting dirty while creating something functional. More so recently. Like many like-minded chapesses and chaps, particularly in this economic age, I have been driven to attempt things that I might not have considered in the past, although please keep schtum about the house rewiring. So this is my DIY record to be put on public display, in the hope that it might inspire people to attempt daunting deeds, resulting in cost effective personal satisfaction (and time to play with serious power tools), and also I hope it may bring in constructive criticism, so that I may learn and improve upon existing skills (truly).